“We played Xbox all night.”
“What are you, twelve?” I laughed. “You stayed up late and played video games? I don’t know who you are or what you did with my friend, but I want him back.”
“It was the best time. She’s really smart. I threw some accounting questions by her about a new deal, and she was right on the money with them. She saw I had an old Xbox and wanted to play. So we played and had so much fun. It was like I was a teenager again.”
I just stood in awe and shook my head.
“So everyone was pissed off about you not being there this morning. You have to show up. I need everyone else to show up, so you have to.”
“Sorry, I’ll be there next week,” Merrick said in his typical response.
“Is there another day or time that would work better? The guys really do need your insights and teaching on this. As much as I have to admit it, you’re pretty damn good at your job.”
“No, next week will work. The day and time are fine; I just get busy sometimes. You know, it’s hard to pull myself away from a beautiful woman in the morning.”
This was the frustrating thing about trying to lead. I couldn’t imagine how frustrating it would be to lead a whole company since I was constantly frustrated with my small little investment group. But Merrick had a skilled team of leaders who worked for him. He didn’t have to lead most of the time; he only had to make sure the people he hired were doing a good job at leading their employees.
“What did you guys invest in this week?” he asked.
“We didn’t get around to it much. Ren ended up signing me up for his dating app, and I spent the whole time going through the questions.”
“Oh, yeah, how did that go?”
“Not really anywhere. I have two matches and spent several hours answering questions.”
“That’s great.”
Obviously, he wasn’t really listening to me if he thought two matches were a great amount of matches. But I was used to talking and having Merrick totally ignore me; that wasn’t something all that new to me.
“I only have two matches; how is that great?” I laughed.
“You only need one. From what I heard, Ren was really good, and the app made some serious love connections. His asset ratio when he sold the company was extremely high. I suspect it was one of those golden deals where both sides felt like they had hit the jackpot.”
“You know about his app?”
“Yeah, he was talking about it last month in our meeting. You know I actually pay attention when I come to the meeting. I’m not just a pretty face.”
“Well, still … two matches doesn’t seem like much. I’d like to have a little more to choose from.”
“That’s your problem right there!” he said accusingly.
“What’s my problem? That I want choices?”
“Yes. You are basically saying that even if your perfect match is handed to you on a silver platter, you still want to look around and see what’s out there. You’ll never find a good woman that way. You’ve got to enjoy what’s in front of you and stop worrying about what you’re missing.”
“I enjoy what is in front of me.”
“No, you don’t. It doesn’t matter how fucking amazing a woman is; you get rid of her after one night.”
“Not true. I’ve dated a couple of women.”
“Wyatt, get your head in the game here. You wouldn’t consider buying a stock and selling it one day later would you?”
“No, the market is too volatile, and it takes longer than that to get to know a company.”
“But it doesn’t take longer than one night to get to know a woman? Are you crazy! They are some of the most complicated creatures in the world. I’d say it takes at least three nights with a woman before I can make an informed decision on if I’d like to continue seeing her or not.”
I hated it when Merrick was right about things. Yet I knew that was exactly what I did. I always thought my perfect match was someone besides the woman I was with, so I never really invested in the woman I was with.
“Let’s be honest, not many of the women I’ve been with were really the sort to keep around.” I gave a laugh.
“How would you know?”
Merrick was serious and even stern in his expression. He was getting philosophical with me, and I always lost the argument when that happened.
“Because they weren’t. The women I have one-night stands with aren’t interested in anything more. They just want a quick release and to move on with their life when we are done.”
“You don’t know that, Wyatt. You wouldn’t know what a relationship even was. I’m your friend, and you know I love the ladies just as much as you do. But women need you to respect them. They get frustrated when you only pretend to respect them. If you only want a month-long relationship, be honest about it, and that’s it. If you only want a night-long relationship, don’t expect them to open up to you or anything like that. And you certainly can’t expect to ever find a lifelong partner if you’re treating her like a one-night stand. Even your perfect woman would run at that offer.”
“I don’t know why you’ve gotten so philosophical lately, but I don’t like it.”
“You know Bambi is one of the smartest women I’ve ever been out with. I had the best conversations with her last night, and I really can’t imagine another woman living up to that standard. I would never have guessed any of that by looking at her. I would never have known what a rounded woman she truly was if I hadn’t been willing to listen to her.”
“Okay,” I had no idea where he was going with this.
“So, I’m saying you need to get out of your uptight comfort zone and live a little. If Ren found out two matches on that system, then use them. Stop complaining and do something.”
“Okay, fine, I will!”
“Okay, good.”
“Wow, something’s come over you; that’s for sure,” I said.
“Let me see that app of yours. Let’s see those matches.”
We both looked at the two women I was matched up with, and as we were looking at the screen, a new match came through. It was exciting to have a new match; even though I understood the concept of fewer matches, I still wanted more choices, and I couldn’t help that.
“One hundred percent!” We said in unison.
“Her name’s Dakota; oh I like that,” Merrick said. “It doesn’t say that much about her, though. Blonde hair, green eyes, works in the arts. This really is a mysterious app.”
“Yeah, I have no idea why people like it so much. I had more information on my ninety-five percent matches than I have on this one.”
“It says they recommend you accept the match.”
“Fine, I accept it. I’d like to see this woman who is such a perfect match for me. Hopefully, I’ll get to see her picture now.”
It was true; I really did want to see who this woman was. Ren had said there wasn’t any better match than 95%, so the fact that I had a girl who 100% matched with me was beyond interesting.
This whole dating thing was moving along rather quickly, and I suddenly felt my chest tightening with apprehension. I thought I wanted a match, a woman that I felt really connected with, but now the prospect did seem very overwhelming to me. Would I even know what to do with a woman that was my actually perfect match?
“Okay, now I guess we wait and see what’s next.” Merrick laughed. “Maybe she will magically appear in your bed tonight?”
“Very funny.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t put it past Ren. He’s a billionaire you know. They are really smart.”
Merrick always joked like that. Because he was a billionaire, and people said things like that to him. They thought because he had money, then he could fix almost any problem. But they didn’t understand that every person was different, and we all had things that we were good or bad at; the amount of money in our bank account didn’t change our skills. Being rich didn’t make Merrick or Ren better people than they would have bee
n if they were poor. Being rich just made it a little easier to be the best person they wanted to be.
***
Monday morning at work was always my least favorite. It took everyone too long to get back on track, and the markets were usually halfway through the day before my teams seemed to get a hold of their trades for the day. Trading was a science that used graphs and charts, but the role that the human trader played in the market was never more visible than on Monday mornings.
I loved money. I loved trading it and making it. The excitement of the trading floor had been my favorite as I learned the investing business, but it was exhausting and so stressful that I couldn’t stay doing it. There was an admiration from me to the guys who could keep doing the floor trading, though because I knew firsthand just how hard it could be. Floor trading was physically and mentally for the new and young traders. As I aged, I was able to learn that lesson and got myself into an office and off of the trading floor.
Mondays, just like all the other days of the week, went by quickly when the market was volatile. It was well after the closing bell before I was able to sit down at my desk and not feel like I was going to lose millions of dollars. Every day was similar to some extent, but Mondays were by far the worst.
When I finally opened my phone to look through the Date Tonight app, I still expected to see more matches than the three I had. Was I really that hard to match up with? Or maybe I was just expecting too much from an app developed by a teenager. Ren had only been 18-years-old when he came up with the idea for his dating app, was that old enough to know what people wanted in a love match? I wasn’t sure.
There was one unique thing about the girl I had a 100% match with; I now had the choice of some pre-selected starter conversation flirt messages. It seemed silly not just to allow full one-to-one conversations between us, but I was starting to realize this was a game and that the game was part of the appeal to people. I went along with it for fun and found the message that I thought best suited my personality.
---I’m excited to match with you. Should we move things to the next step?—
The truth was, I had no idea what the next step of the game was, but it seemed the only option that would move me closer to meeting this girl. There was no way I was going to fall for her until I saw her in person, so I just needed to play the game until that could happen.
I was about to close the app when I was notified that I received an answer. My adrenaline spiked at the realization she was online at the same time as me.
---Yes, should we play the game?---
Her message also seemed like a premade choice, and I couldn’t help wondering what her other options had been. What game? I thought. Weren’t we already playing the game? I clicked on her message, but this time, instead of giving me a long choice of options to reply to her, I was only given two options.
---Match with Dakota and Play the Game---
---UnMatch with Dakota---
Again, there was no real choice here. Of course, I clicked ‘Match with Dakota and Play the Game.’ I had to see who she was. I was so curious I could hardly wait to see what would happen next. But then my screen went black, and one message filled the screen. There was nothing to click on, no other options, just a black screen with the message in the middle.
---The Game Has Started---
I tried clicking back to the home screen. I tried to go back to Dakota’s profile, but I couldn’t go anywhere. Apparently, I had just started the game. I laughed to myself. Hopefully, it was a game that would end with me meeting this girl, and hopefully, she wouldn’t be hideous.
Dating apps and games weren’t at all interesting to me. But I felt excited at the prospect of getting to talk to this girl in real life. If she had gone through as much trouble as I had with all those questions and surveys, that meant that she obviously was interested in finding a match.
Dating in New York was hard. At least it was hard for me and most of the guys I knew. It was impossible to turn down a beautiful woman when you were at the bar, yet I always felt like there was another pretty woman that was even nicer who I might be missing.
Dating often left me feeling totally unproductive, and I didn’t like that feeling at all. I was used to making things happen at work, and I was looking forward to building my dating skills so I could make things happen in my dating life.
Chapter 6
Dakota
I only had two choices to answer Wyatt with when we matched. I either had to choose to move things to the next step or unmatch with him; it seemed like a very drastic choice for me to have to make so early in the matching process. But I didn’t want to unmatch with the guy, so I asked if he wanted to play the game.
“I don’t know what this stupid app means by ‘play the game,’ I can’t click on anything,” I yelled out to Emma from my vocal studio.
She was the one that put me on the stupid app; surely she would know what the game was and how to play it. I really wished she would have explained things more to me before I started matching with people. Now the app was frozen and all it said was:
---The Game Has Started---
I couldn’t click anywhere, and I had no other options to even play this game that the app was talking about. Maybe trying to find a man on a phone app wasn’t the best way for me to find someone?
I didn’t have that hard of a time finding men. I certainly could find one anytime we went out dancing. But I wanted a higher caliber of man. I wanted a guy that I couldn’t think about being anywhere else but my bed at night.
When I was young, I thought about the perfect man for me and knew that he would have to love helping others. It was something I loved to do and why I ended up finding vocal coaching as a career.
At first, I was giving free vocal lessons to people who I had met while I was a waitress. I would overhear them talking about their upcoming auditions, and I used my high school training to help them. I had taken vocal lessons for four years through a program at my high school, and some of my tips had been helpful for people.
Soon, I had customers coming in and telling me that my tips had helped them get a part. They were so enthusiastic and supportive that these clients started to refer their friends to me, and soon I had to start charging people because I was taking time off of my waitressing job to teach singing. Before long, I was in my studio at Emma’s dance studio, and I was able to start working full-time in my dream profession.
So I knew the power of volunteering and helping others, and it was something I strongly looked for in men. It was an easy question to ask but hard to ask while you were in a dance club. Often I didn’t get around to talking about charity work until I had already slept with a guy. Then I’d find out they hated volunteering or didn’t think they should have to since they weren’t making enough money. Inevitably, I had a very hard time finding a man in New York who was willing to volunteer.
“How would I know what this app is doing?” Emma said as she grabbed my phone.
“You mean you don’t know how this thing works? Why would you sign me up for a dating app that you didn’t know how to work?”
“I just heard it was really good. I wasn’t about to sign myself up as a test subject. It’s much better if you try it out first and let me know.”
That was exactly like Emma to do something like that to me. She was the wild and adventurous one of the two of us, yet she always made me try things out first; it made zero sense. Emma also knew that I wouldn’t have signed up for such a weird app on my own without her doing it for me.
“Well, it’s broken. I had a guy that was a one hundred percent match. It was that guy with the weird quote on his page. I didn’t see that he volunteered with the elderly helping them with their money. But the app only gave me the option to start a game, and then it froze on this page.”
Emma analyzed the phone like she knew what was going on, but I could tell that she had no idea. I restarted to app. I even tried deleting it and reinstalling it but nothing happened; it was perpetual
ly stuck on that page.
“I think you broke it.” She laughed.
“Stop! This is serious, Emma; we were a one hundred percent match. What if he’s the one? What if I’m meant to find him, and we are going to fall in love.”
She dramatically rolled her eyes at me, and then we both started laughing. Even I knew I sounded like a lovesick teenager at the idea I would find true love from some silly dating app that matched me up with someone after only a few questions.
“What was that guy’s name that you matched up with?”
“I think it was Wyatt. Or Wayne or something like that. I’m not really sure.”
I lied. I knew his name was Wyatt. I had spent a good twenty minutes looking through his profile and reading all about him. He liked to run, volunteered with the elderly, and worked in the financial field. He was health conscious, politically aware, and seemed very well rounded. Although, nothing that I read on his profile made me fall in love with the guy. He seemed just like a lot of the men in New York that I met out in the bars, but he volunteered, and I loved that.
“Did you do all the question things?” Emma asked as she held onto my phone.
“Yeah, I did like a dozen of them. They were pretty intense. Hopefully, this app isn’t corrupted because a hacker sure could get a lot of personal information about the users.”
“Let’s Google the App and see what other people say about the Game.”
We both fell onto the couch in the lobby as she started the search for answers. It was weird, though; there wasn’t anything specifically saying what the game part of the dating app was. A lot of reviews were saying how great the app was, even YouTube videos that show people matching up with others and starting the Game part, but then the video ended with the same frozen screen that I had. No one seemed to have posted any videos with what happened after the frozen screen.
“This is really weird, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Yeah, in this day and age, everyone’s spoiling all the fun from these things. But no one has anything posted; it’s really odd.”
His Huge Rock Page 6