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Hi, he said. How r u?
Normally, butchering English would’ve turned me off. But since he was on a phone, I could excuse it.
Fine, I replied. You?
I didn’t expect an immediate response—or one at all, if I wanted to be honest with myself. It wasn’t often guys sent me messages on apps like this, especially guys like him.
His username was IceFire. His profile described him as a tall, Caucasian male with short blonde hair and blue eyes. His physique, listed as ‘athletic,’ was confirmed in a profile picture which displayed little more than a black-and-white torso, and a fade shrouding his eyes from view—typical fare of the guy who wanted to be ‘down-low.’ He was a sight to behold, all broad-shouldered and slim-wasted, heavily-muscled and the slightest smattering of hair across his stomach and his chin, but that didn’t matter. The picture could’ve been a fake, which wouldn’t have been unlikely considering it was his only one.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
His opening come-on was proof enough of where this was going.
He wanted to get laid.
But with me? Couldn’t he have found someone better?
“Last pickings,” I muttered, easing my dinosaur of a laptop up onto my lap.
I decided to ignore the fact that I was most likely his pity hookup and watched the scrolling RSS feed on the side of my browser until the incoming message notification lit up the inside of one tab.
I clicked.
Sure enough, it was Mr. IceFire. He sure was persistent.
I opened the message and waited for the apartment’s shitty connection to load the message before leaning forward.
Want 2 hang out?
I could’ve laughed at the response.
Downtown, a second message came in. 6th street.
I looked out the window and surveyed the surroundings of east Austin. While it was getting late, I could probably still catch the bus if I hurried. It wasn’t as if there would be cops waiting to catch me jaywalking or anything.
Was it worth it though?
I turned my attention back to his username and waited for his profile to load before skimming through it. The first thing that caught my eye was how well put together it was. The second was that it actually used proper spelling and punctuation, unlike his messages, which meant that either he was trying to impress someone by being smart, or he actually was smart.
I lifted my eyes to the top of the profile.
Looking for: Friendship.
Friendship? With a picture like that?
Sighing, I leaned back against the wall and lifted my glasses to rub my eyes, contemplating when the last time I’d gone out had been or whether or not I’d even enjoyed myself, much less with another, possibly-attractive guy.
Despite the usual persistence found in the guys on these sites, IceFire didn’t send another message.
I considered my options before me.
After a little less than three minutes, I opened my mouth and said, “Fuck it.”
What club? I typed.
Thunder, he replied.
