“That’s what it’s supposed to feel like?”
“Yeah, isn’t it amazing?”
“I’ve never done drugs before, but I bet this is what it feels like.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad to hear you’ve never done drugs.” I laughed. “As long as you have singing, you’ll never have to do drugs ever. You can simply find an outlet to sing for others, and it will always give you the high feeling you have right now.”
“I used to think I didn’t really want to be on Broadway. It was just my mother’s dream. But after losing that audition, I was actually sad. Not just sad that I had lost it, but sad that my mom was going to be so disappointed in me. Is it wrong that I do want to be on Broadway, even partly for her?”
“It’s not wrong. We all like to make our parents proud of us, but you have to make your own dreams your priority and not hers.”
“Maybe Broadway is my goal; I’m not sure.”
I had to laugh at the grown up conversation we were having. Mary Beth was 12-years-old; she didn’t need to be certain of what she wanted to do when she grew up. She should be more worried about class and friends than she was about her future.
“It’s okay; you have plenty of time. I’m really happy to see your fire lit inside of you, though. That is such a beautiful thing.”
“I feel the passion.”
“I felt it when you sang.”
It was a special moment between the two of us. I felt privileged to be there at the moment when she decided to stop being a moody pre-teen and start taking control of her own life. It was a hard life she had; I didn’t envy her at all, but when her mother finally arrived to pick her up, I saw that Mary Beth Henderson was happier than I had ever seen her during our sessions. Her mother promised not to schedule on Sunday morning again; I didn’t believe her, and we said our good-byes.
“Was that the same girl you had since this morning? I haven’t seen you leave your office at all,” Emma said as she sat at the front desk to the studio.
“Yep, it’s a long story, and I’m exhausted. Can we go get food?”
“Sure, let me just finish setting up your Date Tonight profile.”
“What? Why are you doing that?”
“Because it looks fun, and I didn’t want to put my profile up. Plus, you’re much prettier. I heard this app has helped people find their soul mate in like a week. That’s just what you need.”
“Let me see; what are you putting on there?”
“I just uploaded your photo and the basics. They have too many questionnaires and tests. You can log in and do those later. But I want to help pick your guy.”
I just rolled my eyes at Emma’s plan. She was always trying to fix me up, yet I didn’t think she understood if I had a man around I wouldn’t be hanging out with her nearly as much and then she’d be stuck going dancing alone.
“Let me see,” I said as I grabbed her phone and started to read about the website.
I wasn’t totally opposed to the idea of meeting a guy. Actually, I liked the idea of meeting Mr. Right; the problem was that I wasn’t sure he was anywhere out there. The level of losers around was incredible. New York had a lot of men, but most were more interested in their work careers than meeting a decent woman. They wanted one-night stands to fill their sexual gratification and nothing more.
I understood the one-night stand mentality. I had participated in a few in the years I had been there. But I preferred to actually get to know a guy. I tried to pick guys that I would at least go on a couple of dates with because I found it extremely boring to constantly be going on first dates. After a couple of dates, I knew if I wanted to keep the guy around for longer or move on. It was a similar principle to one-night stands, but I just took a little longer to make my decisions.
“It looks fun. Raul said he met a really nice girl on there.”
“Who’s Raul?”
“The guy I was with last night.”
“How nice is this girl of his if he went home with you?”
“Oh, please, don’t go on and on about the benefits of monogamy again.”
“You know this isn’t some weird thing I made up, right. Monogamy is a thing. Most people believe in it. Most women especially believe in it. I’m not the weird one here.”
“I know. I know. Most people also get their hearts broken by the monogamy they tie each other down with. I just don’t think it’s necessary. In my ideal world, you can have a very fulfilling relationship without forcing monogamy into the situation.”
“Says the woman who doesn’t have fulfilling relationships,” I muttered under my breath.
“Oh, I was plenty fulfilled last night and well into the morning.” She laughed with a wink.
We made it to our favorite lunch shop, and I continued clicking through the dating app that Emma had signed me up for. It actually seemed pretty interesting and fun for a change. I answered questions, clicked on photos that I liked, marked my favorite places to eat, and even clicked on the gym I liked to work out at.
The description of the app made it sound like there was a person going through and sorting every applicant and matching them up, or at least a virtual program that acted like a person. What did I have to lose? My dating life couldn’t get much worse than a teenage boy hitting on me. I was still a young, idealistic woman in New York hoping for the man of my dreams to come and sweep me away.
“You seem interested in it; is it any good?” Emma asked.
“Yeah, it doesn’t let you see the other person’s photo, though. You have to match with them based off of reading their profile or something like that. Seems like a lot of effort, but it’s very intriguing.”
“Oh, hell no! I need to at least see a photo. Even if it’s a totally fake one from ten years before.” Emma laughed. “I can tell right away by looking at a guy if I’m going to get along with him. What if the guy has a big beer belly or something like that? Maybe you should delete that app after all.”
I couldn’t help laughing too. That was the thing about online dating programs. No one really wanted to show who they were, and with everyone pretending to be someone else, it didn’t seem likely that there would be long-lasting matching found through such a program.
“Oh, look at this one,” I said as I laughed.
“A mix of Bart Simpson and Marge? What?” Emma laughed in confusion.
“I don’t know, but it’s funny. I like a guy who doesn’t say the same old boring stuff. I’m going to pick him.”
“Wait, no! It says he’s in the financial industry. Ugh, he’s probably a boring stockbroker. You can’t date a boring guy; that would drive me crazy. And how on earth could he be a mix of Bart and Marge Simpson? Is he a cross-dresser or something. Say no. Just say no.”
“Emma, I hate to break it to you, but I’m actually boring. A nice boring guy would suit me just fine.”
“Okay, but I get to pick the next one then.”
“Deal.”
We continued for at least an hour as we read each other some of the men’s profiles and took turns saying yes or no to them. By the end of the hour, I had plenty of possible matches, and it was time to sit back and see if any of them picked me as well. This was the part I hated the most. It was like high school and the dread of not getting picked. I logged into the app on my phone and deleted it from Emma’s. I would just have to wait and see if anyone thought my profile was halfway amusing and picked me.
Chapter 5
Wyatt
“A mix of Bart Simpson and Marge,” Ren said as he typed it into my profile.
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter. You just want to be interesting and witty. Girls don’t want to understand you; they want to be intrigued by you.”
“I’d like to know what I’m saying, though,” I said as I grabbed my phone back and continued with the rest of the description for my Date Tonight profile.
The rest of the guys had left when our meeting was officially turned into my da
ting app help session, so Ren and I just continued to set up my profile. I didn’t buy into all the hype but really, what was there to lose. Ren seemed to believe his app had the ability to really help me find someone, and I was all for finding a nice girl. Or at least I thought I was ready to find a nice girl. It was hard to know since I felt like I had surrounded myself with crazy women recently.
Women were such beautiful creatures, and I really did appreciate all their qualities. From the women who wanted to work out all the time to the ones who hated to exercise at all. From the women who liked to party and drink on the weekends to the ones who stayed home and read good books; I understood all those decisions because I had felt that same way at one point or another in my life. But I wanted to find a woman that I wouldn’t want to let go of in the morning. It was a new urge for me, and I had to see if that sort of woman was even possible.
I had begun to think that my own one-night dating history was all there was out there. Guys that happened to find a wife and were having children and happy were an enigma to me, but I admired them very much. To watch their lives from the outside, it appeared they were much happier than I was.
I was happy. Sure, I wasn’t depressed about my life at all. I got to sleep with beautiful women and had an amazing job. But at some point, all of that even seemed old. At some point, I felt like every man wanted to find that one woman who they would grow old with.
“Okay, let me fill this out. I don’t want it not to sound like me,” I said as I started to fill out the rest of the questions.
“Just take your time. You won’t be able to get it all done tonight.”
“Why the hell not? How much is there to fill out?” My commitment issues had already started to rear their ugly head.
“There’s a lot, but it’s worth it. You’ll get questions that pop up throughout your user experience and answering them will help you find a better match. Always make sure you are answering the questions as honestly as possible. Don’t give the answer that you think is best; give your actual best answer.”
“Okay, but I don’t have time for an hour of questions every day.”
“It’s not that bad.” Ren laughed. “Maybe an hour of questions every other day.”
As I clicked through the barrage of questions, it became clear the app was trying to get to know me. It was asking everything that a date might ask, and I liked that concept. Instead of answering the same questions over and over again with blind dates, the app would hopefully use my answers to weed out people who just weren’t a good fit.
It took nearly an hour before my profile was filled out enough that I could see what matches were available to me. There was a sense of excitement in finding that I already had matches that were compatible with me based on what I had filled out that far. In New York, it sometimes felt like there were no women that were a good match, even though there were thousands of beautiful women.
“Wow, forty matches,” I said with pride as the number came up.
“That’s horrible,” Ren said and grabbed my phone. He played around with it for a minute and then gave it back to me. “These aren’t matches yet. They are women you can choose to match with.”
“Why is it horrible?”
“Go through and read these profiles and decide if you like them or not. Swipe right if you sort of like them. Swipe left if they are an absolutely no.”
“Hey, where did all my matches go? I’ve only got two left,” I said when I had finished swiping on the matches. “I swiped right on a lot more than two.”
“That’s all you need. Even if you swipe right, you don’t get matched with them until they also swipe right. And even then there are a lot of other algorithms that go into your matches. Your profile was set to match up with anyone who was an 80% match or more. I changed it to 95%. It’s not really worth playing the game unless you have a very strong match.”
I looked at the two profiles that were 95% matches, and they both looked good. Well, looked good on paper since I couldn’t actually see their photos. All the basics of what I was looking for were in the profiles, but they still didn’t seem like the best possible matches I could get. There had to be more.
“Can both of these women see that we are matched?”
“Yep, but you won’t be able to communicate directly yet. Women get the chance to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a match before you can communicate with them.”
“So even though we are a ninety-five percent match, the woman might still decide not to match? Man this is getting confusing, Ren.”
“Don’t worry about all of that. Just keep answering questions, and go from there. There’s basically a different program for women than there is for men. The women don’t actually see the percentile matching system because research says they don’t like it as much as men. For right now, answer your questions that pop up, and tomorrow we can visit about the matches you get. You won’t get anyone over 95%, but you should get a couple that comes through at that rate. It’s New York; there’s millions of women, and you can’t be disgusting to all of them.” Ren laughed as he headed out.
“Thanks a lot. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Yep.”
I continued to click through the questions and didn’t see any other matches pop up. I could tell I was already losing my patience with this program. Only two matches; how the hell was I supposed to find a decent woman when I only had two options to choose from? It didn’t seem like the program was working all that well, but I continued with it for a little bit. By early afternoon, I was over the whole thing, though, and tucked my phone away. There was only so much online dating a guy could do before he needed to have a real woman by his side.
I loved women; there was no denying that. But I liked to have my choices. This dating app thought that by asking me questions, it could match me up, but I was a finicky character. Sometimes I liked a woman who was a little out of the ordinary for me. I liked blondes, but I had had plenty of fun with women of all hair colors, shapes, and sizes. The idea of pigeonholing me into one specific type wasn’t all that appealing. But I had to take a break from all the woman finding and deal with Merrick.
“Just because you own the company, doesn’t mean I won’t come over there and kick your ass,” I said when Merrick picked up the phone.
“Mom, is that you?” He laughed.
“Come on. You promised you were coming today.”
“Darling, I’m getting into the shower,” a woman’s voices said in the background.
“Hear that Wyatt? How could I leave such a wonderful woman all alone?”
“She’s not going to disappear if you had come to our meeting. She would have been there when you returned. No woman would dare disappoint you,” I joked.
Merrick liked to make his women happy; there was no doubt about it. He didn’t just want to have them for one night. He wanted to keep them for a couple of nights throughout the weekends, and sometimes even well into the next week. His typical one-night stand often lasted for weeks and turned into what I considered an actual relationship. Yet, when it was time to part ways, Merrick never seemed to have any trouble getting the women to let go. I admired his abilities in that aspect. I kept my dates to one night and still had to deal with some emotional awkwardness when it was time to cut things off.
“I’m coming over,” I said to Merrick, knowing he wasn’t going to like the idea.
“I’m not into threesomes with other guys, sorry.” He laughed. “Let’s just talk tomorrow at work. I have so many better options for spending my day today.”
“Let’s talk about the investment club. I need to straighten some things out.”
“Really, I should tell you to kiss my ass, but I know you’re not going to give up so just come over.”
Merrick knew me well. When I had something on my mind, it was difficult for me to focus on anything else until my item was figured out. It was like my brain preferred to focus on one item and get it totally solved before I could focus on the next thing. I ha
d always been that way, and it served me very well in my business life.
I wasn’t the kind of boss who would say I’d get something done and then totally forget, being in middle management meant I had the owner Merrick to report to and that meant I had to get things done. I was focused and always finished each task. As much as other people thought my friendship with Merrick was why I had made it up the corporate ladder at our office, it was really because I could get things done, and of course, because I was a damn good investor.
I knocked firmly on the front door when I arrived. Just like clockwork, Merrick opened the door, and Bambi stood there, fully dressed and on her way out of his apartment. Merrick loved his women, but he was a businessman before all else and business always meant that his women only got half of him at any one time.
“I’ll send a car for you around eight o’clock,” Merrick said to Bambi as he kissed her passionately in front of me and then walked her to the elevator.
“See you later darling,” she said softly.
We waited for the elevator door to close, and then Merrick and I walked back into his place. It was not that unusual for him to say good-bye to a woman when I came over to visit, but it was a little weird how comfortable the two of them seemed already.
“So you liked this one?” I teased.
“She’s incredible. If I had been in Vegas, I would have married her.”
This was not at all like Merrick! Sure, he liked to keep a woman around for a little bit, but he absolutely never talked about marriage.
“That must have been one hell of a night,” I said with a laugh. “Maybe we will make an honest man of you after all.”
“We didn’t have sex.”
His statement took a moment to register in my brain. I had just watched a beautiful and very busty woman leave his apartment. They had clearly had a hell of a lot of chemistry by the looks of the kiss they exchanged. So the idea that he hadn’t slept with her didn’t seem like it was at all possible.
“Excuse me?” I questioned. “I heard her say she was getting into the shower.”
His Huge Rock Page 5