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Chapter Eight
SIENNA
It’s been a week since I first created the profiles on all the dating sites, and I’ve learned a lot in those seven days.
The number-one lesson: Being single in the digital age fucking sucks.
How can one feel lonelier with access to so many more people than ever before? It’s like everyone has been jaded, become desensitized to taking other people’s feelings into consideration because it’s behind a screen and “not real-life,” and you don’t have to actually face the damage you’re doing to someone’s very real psyche.
They need to change the old saying from plenty of fish in the sea to too many fish in the sea. Because it’s like everyone has taken the saying meant to make you feel better about getting back out there and trying again after heartbreak, and they’ve twisted it. Now, no one wants to put forth any type of effort to find something meaningful, to start slow, to get to know someone before trying to jump into bed with them.
There are too many fish in the sea, too many opportunities to skip to the “good” part, to cut to the chase. Instead of putting in all the work, they’d rather just copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste the same opening message to see how easy they think it’ll be to get in someone’s pants. Because they know there are people lonely enough, people desperate for any kind of connection, who will take whatever they can get, even if that’s just a casual encounter, a meaningless one-night stand.
What’s that other saying? Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
I sigh and lean back into my couch cushions, opening the Feeld app on my phone, since I’ve already gone through all my messages on the sites I can on my laptop. I’ve talked to quite a few men this week, most of them blocking me the second I told them I was there for research and to actually get to know people and wasn’t interested in just jumping into the sack.
I was, however, nicely surprised by a gentleman on the sugar daddy site who didn’t question my profile right off the bat. While everyone before him had immediately asked if I’d reconsider what I was on the site for, as if I would see their photo and read their thrown-together About Me and fall so madly in love at first sight that I’d throw everything I believed I wanted right out the window. Because apparently, we little women can’t possibly know what we truly need, right? So we should let the big, strong man who makes all the money tell us instead.
Well, guess what, assholes. I make plenty of fucking money on my own…
When I’m not too damn depressed to write.
And I know exactly what I truly need.
For some miracle to happen and for magic to suddenly be real. Then I could write my perfect Dom into existence. Because the men on all these sites… they ain’t cuttin’ it.
Anyway, whether this one guy really just has great game or if he’s being sincere, there’s no way to be sure. But I choose to believe there are still chivalrous gentlemen out there, so that’s the option I’ll go with. He messaged to say he’s been on the site for quite some time and to let me know that I would most definitely get lots of messages from men who would ask if I was for real or not. Real, as in an intelligent woman with a career, an author, and if that was my real picture, and also real, as in really only on the site for research. He was correct on both of those counts. He said if I had any specific questions for my book, he’d be glad to answer what he could anonymously. As long as I didn’t mention him in the story or the acknowledgments, he’d help with anything I needed to know.
We’ve had several messages back and forth this week, and when he slipped in one that offered to take things further, it made me smile rather than growl at my computer. Because it was a respectful baby step and not the giant leap into bed like all the others tried.
Just throwing this out there. If you’d be open to asking these questions over coffee, I’d answer them still with the understanding you aren’t interested in anything more. My treat, of course. After all, you know what this site was actually created for before it was taken over by the fakes. And I happen to be one of the rare few left who really does just want the company of a beautiful, intellectual woman for an hour or two to have a real and interesting conversation with.
I’m still not ready to meet up with anyone in person, not even just for coffee. It set off my anxiety just thinking about meeting a complete stranger I’d never laid eyes on before in my life. So I did what I always do when I feel put on the spot but don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
