I
-you wanted the check ma'am?" -he nearly shouted the third time around. The girl only managed to mumble a very brief "please" through the hand covering her jaw-dropped mouth. He couldn't see her face, or the screen, for she was nearly touching it with her nose. He could tell, however, the message was both upsetting and unexpected.
Was he about to witness remote rejection happening to someone other than
himself? He knew exactly how it felt but hadn't seen what it looked like from
the outside. Whenever that happened to him, regardless of the number of layers
the season imposed, he suddenly felt somehow naked in public, overexposed, as
if everyone in the place knew not only he had just been ditched at the very las
minute but also why. -they know nothing¡ -he'd repeat to himself while rushing
for the door of the coffee shop of choice, knowing, deep down, everyone would
be doing their fair share of educated guessing, and that some of them, if only
statistically, were bound to be right. Like damn Tania! For sure, she was not the
only one in the world like that. With that horrible talent, only useful to
deprive people from their privacy and the confidentiality of what goes on in
their heads and their private lives. It was not like a super power, though. It
had nothing to do with mind-reading or some sort of heightened intuition. It
had more to do with having the right type of prejudices and the sort of
pre-conceived ideas that always turned out to be as true as if they were
retrospectively proven. As if they were the verified results of sound
socio-psychological experiments based on massive polls and extensive
interviewing.
Statistics¡ percentages¡...loathed them all unless related to tips. He'd
read somewhere only 31% of women his age admitted to using dating apps for
dating; that only 28% of those who used them had agreed to date anyone through
the app at least once; that 36% of all dates convened ended up in a "no
show"; that only 22% of the dates that actually happened lasted more than
20 minutes; that 19% of them ended up in sex, but only 8% was followed by a
second date. The percentage of relationships derived from dates agreed over the
app he was using was 2. All that left him, out of a hundred thousand women and
after doing the math, with less than half a girlfriend, and he'd already had
that. After the break-up, he thought he´d hit rock-hard bottom, that things
could only get better from then on, but last night however, he had had the equivalent
of a quarter of a date. The girl had showed up but "something (had) come
up" nearly right after seeing him, and left before finishing her very first
cup of coffee. He´d always thought showing up was minimum decency. Now, he
wasn’t so sure. It took her seconds to disappear as she hardly explained
anything, but he re-lived the moment for hours, playing the scene over and over
again in his head, from every possible angle, and in every one of them he
looked like a miserable fool. His usual consolation mantra: “she doesn´t know
what she´s missing on” was impossible this time, and that made it all the more
humiliating.
That couldn’t be the case here though. What kind of jerk would do
something like that to this perfectly sweet looking girl? maybe it was nothing
though… a grandparent (or a pet) had just died… or, equally terrible, a friend
and her boyfriend’s ex had worn the same dress to last night´s thing …(work
related issues were ruled out on a Sunday morning)… Was there a worse day of the
week to be stood up than a Sunday morning? Isn´t that´s just pure cruelty!
Highly unlikely to have a plan B; highly unlikely for an unaware friend to pick
up the phone or engage in a last-minute thing; very likely to be forced to go
back home alone and feel miserable the rest of the day. He imagined himself
feeding Marco, his cat, suddenly downgraded from “dear companion” to a mere
furry lump only capable of further proving his wretched loneliness. “Exhibit A”
in the case against his ever “having anyone”. Finally, very likely to start the
week in a “rejected mood”. He´d only started agreeing to first dating on
Sundays ever since he started working as a waiter, and weekends, hence, took place, on a Tuesday or a Wednesday instead, depending on the week. For this poor girl,
however, …No! … This was serious stuff! Not to joke about!... Was he really feeling
truly sorry for the girl? Or was he only projecting on her how sorry he still
felt for himself about last night? Was it sincere concern what had kept him
standing there, wanting to ask the girl if she was alright? Or was it morbid
unhealthy curiosity? Honestly, wasn´t he, deep down, expecting the worse to
happen in order to witness some sort of indirect, collateral, gender based
revenge? Wasn´t he starting to hate women altogether? Wasn´t that gay? Was he
that bitter?
He´s thoughts were all over the place, his heart was racing. He felt
like a wildlife cameraman, hiding among the bushes, waiting for the predator to
jump on its victim, except for the fact that there were no bushes... He had
been standing there, all to visibly, right in front of her, indiscreetly trying to peek
at her mobile screen. Mute for an inexplicably long amount of time. He
needed to say something or leave. Now! But leaving was out of the question. The
guys at the back had bet on it. One to five favouring the thwarted date
hypothesis. And he, of course, was “one”.
-is everything alright? -he dared to ask with a much rehearsed though perfectly believable concern.
-is everything alright? -he dared to ask with a much rehearsed though perfectly believable concern.
II
Gloria had had a sleepless night. Not out, or studying or even worrying,
but just being unable to fall asleep. At 4 am she grabbed her mobile and
started chatting with perfect strangers which proved to be entertaining enough
and fairly similar to what she would regard as perfectly harmless fun. She was
quite surprised, however (and somehow pleased, she had to admit) by her
newfound imageless sexting talent. And that kept her going until it was late
enough for her to get out and grab some coffee. Though strictly verbal, all that
anatomical describing, meant to make up for the lack of pixels, had the not
totally unwanted side effect of forcing her to picture her body at least
partially naked. Soon she started to feel slightly overexposed while chatting
in public, in the broad light of day, and therefore, thought best to take the
coffee to go and continue with her naughty messaging in private. The restaurant
though, was so empty at that time in the morning, the sun shining through the
roofless patio felt so comforting against her skin, and the fountain dripping
sound made her suddenly so sleepy and relaxed she decided to stay for a while
and briefly interrupt her literary enticing for a few more minutes. She
couldn’t decide whether she was ready now to head back to bed or needed instead
a third cup of coffee to prolong this moment of quiet simple beauty. The phone
vibrated repeatedly on her left hand while the right one gestured for the
check. One of her fellow chatters had had enough of the writing and volunteered
a very intimate unsolicited close up of his groin. Yet, she had to zoom in!...a
lot!
-“you wanted the check ma´am?" the waiter said, and she couldn’t
quite bring herself to respond with anything more than a very numb “please” not
noticing the bill was already there, in front of her.
-is everything alright? -Went the waiter…and that finally shook her away
from the puzzling image on the phone
- oh… yes!.. no!.. I mean… thanks! that´s sweet of you to ask... really…its no “biggie”…hahaha!...
believe me!.. really! Not a big deal at all!
That was, at least, Tania’s guess-based reconstruction of the events from
what she was told later that day. We can take it to be true, though, as she´s
usually right when it comes to strangers.
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