Henry remembered as soon as he saw the notifications on his phone, first thing on Saturday morning. His profile had received a reassuring number of visits and even a good number of blinks, some hearts and was already among one woman's favorites.
He grabbed a cup of coffee and sat at his desk, unshowered and only wearing his boxers. After trying three times to connect to the website, in vain, he came to the conclusion that maybe a shower was a good idea after all.
Once fully awake and fully dressed, he tried again. Successfully this time. He revisited all the profiles of women that had visited his, making mental notes of the most interesting ones. But before Henry could go further, he had to make good use of his credit card.
Not waiting to suffer one more aggressive pop-up, he opened the subscription page displaying all the payment options. Of course, the longer the subscription, the smaller the fee. The cheapest option of all was a surreal life time deal. Henry thought about it for a second. He was not even sure that this modern way of meeting women would be effective. So, he filed the online payment form for the most expensive option giving him full access for a whole month.
Now what? Henry's mind was suddenly blank. He found himself unable to choose where to start, with whom, what to say to all these single ladies that were not waiting for him. He stared at the profile list, almost shy. Fuck! What was the matter? He took a deep breath and chose to procrastinate. He opened his own profile and tried to fill the missing parts.
To do so without looking retarded, he asked himself the only good question: which movies/books/music would he take with him on a deserted island? Even better: which movies/books/music would he take with him on an island inhabited only by people that would judge him?
- Favorite music: Noir Désir, Pearl Jam, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nirvana... (Henry would have added Method Man, but he feared that the wide gap might be too frightening);
- Favorite books : King's The Stand, Miller's Tropic Of Cancer, Herbert's Dune (Better leave Lord Of The Flies, Fight Club and American Psycho out);
- Favorite movies: The Usual Suspect, Blade Runner, Cyrano de Bergerac (showing a bit of eclecticism here but Saw, American Psycho and Requiem For A Dream wouldn't do).
Henry was almost satisfied with his choices. After all, it only took him half an hour and one hell of a migraine to fill these blanks. And now, he wondered if anyone even read this part of the profile. He hadn't bothered yet himself.
Now for the real deal! It was about time to make some moves. Henry was about to review the profiles of the interested ladies, when he noticed that he received a private message. A smile on his face, he opened the dedicated page, eager to see who the bold one was.
The girl was ageless but beautiful, in a sophisticated way. The profile picture attached to her message was not a selfie nor a webcam shot but a posed photograph, done with research. By a pro? The message in itself was not very long but quite precise. And very disappointing.
Dear JustAnotherGuy, my name is Christina, I'm from Chicago. I just checked your profile and I find it very intriguing. I'd like to know you better. I'm a serious woman looking for the man of my life. Please contact me soon.
A Gmail address followed.
Questions filled Henry's mind while reading the few sentences. Dear JustAnotherGuy, really? Why was she repeating her name and location, findable in her profile? Why didn't he see her visit on his profile? Intriguing? What could a serious woman mean? Wow, the man of her life?! Why did she give her e-mail address already?
Henry sighed loudly, both pissed and amazed by the progress of bots since the Internet's creation. For a moment he was tempted to answer, see how far the seduction could go with automatic answers, but he decided that he had better things to do and just deleted the message.
The bot's message made him think about what he should send. The thing was to send something casual enough not to be scary or awkward but intriguing enough to obtain a reply. Why should the first contact be so difficult, even online? Henry scratched the back of his head, looking for inspiration.
The last girl to visit his profile was very cute: dark red hair, green eyes and a shy smile. Living a bit far away from Paris, but it would be perfect for a first try. Henry clicked on "send a message" and typed the best message he could come up with right now:
- Hey there!
He groaned, slapped his own face and logged off. Time to get back to real life.
*
At this hour of the day, real life was about food, even if Henry was not really hungry.
He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge and several cupboards in search of the perfect lunch. He settled for instant chili. He threw some frozen ground beef in a frying pan, waited for it to brown before adding tomato sauce, chili peppers and red beans. Five more minutes and he was already eating.
He had wolfed down half of his well-served plate by the time he chose what show he would watch on Netflix.
*
When Henry woke up, he was drooling on the couch. Outside, it was pitch black. On the table, the remains of an unfinished ice cream were beyond melted near two beer bottles drowning in pools of condensed water. On the floor, in their open box, piled pizza crusts displayed perfect impressions of his teeth. On the TV, Better Call Saul's first season was coming to its finale.
Henry was feeling fat, sick and tired from a whole day of doing nothing.
He went to bed hating himself and fell asleep again thinking he had to change his lifestyle a bit.
YOU ARE READING
(Not Quite) An Autobiography
Romance"It all started on an otherwise classically dull Thursday evening. On this useless day in the middle of the week, Henry made a decision. Four months, eight days and a few hours after June left him, he decided that he'd had enough." What do you do wh...
