App of hope

I am sitting here, just staring at my cup off coffee. There isn't really much going on in my life right now, I go to college. I work a part time job and I watch some sports once in a while. Sometimes I even go play basketball with my middle school friends. The only thing that probably has changed in my life is that I have a date at this very moment. She hasn't arrived yet but I arrived early so she can be here any minute now.

I can't wait to meet her, I met her on this dating app. I had never used one before. My best friend Marcus told me time and time again that I should stop being so lonely and that I should go search for a girlfriend. That is an easy thing for him to say but it is definitely something I have no experience in. I have never actually had a girlfriend, like sure I like sports and I like watching them but I am also a huge book and game nerd and on top of that I watch anime.

The internet has told me time and time again that it is just impossible for someone like me to get someone to fall in love with me. There are too many negative factors about me. We as gamers probably don't have a good hygiene no matter how many times we shower a day. Obviously most of that is just utter nonsense but still I am sure a lot of people just see us in such a grim light. It is something I have been struggling with my whole life I guess. I just can't seem to get over those feelings of helplessness.

But today that all changes. I set the step to set up a date with the girl I have been talking to. It has been around 2 months since we matched on that app and we haven't had a day where we didn't talk to each other. I felt great talking to her via text. I did never call her because she told me she was shy about her voice, that is probably the reason why it took so long for us to set up this date.

I feel anxious, its anxiety you would feel right before receiving your exam papers. It is an anxiety I am not really used to. But I am sure Kacey will come around, I am sure she will arrive any minute now. We have so much in common with each other, there is no way that she doesn't show up.

I do have my doubts though. What if she is as nervous as me and is too scared to open the door into the café. It is probably that.

I hope.

Fifteen minutes had past and there was still no sign of Kacey. Were all those long night talks we had fake? Was she lying to me? I have to calm down, it has only been fifteen minutes there is nothing to be scared of. Maybe she was involved in an accident?

Oh no no no… I can't think about that. I really don't want to think about all the possibilities. She is just late there is nothing else to it. Her bus might be late, or maybe she overslept a little bit. Oh so many positive possibilities.

Why would I believe any of them? It is hard to not think negatively about something in a world that is designed to fail. There is really no hope for me is there. Everything that slightly goes into the right direction for my life just seems to go wrong.

What did I do wrong? I don't think anything ever went well in my life.

Stop. She told you to stop thinking so negatively, if I keep this up I will end up in an endless cycle.

She has helped me out so much throughout our text conversations, I believe in her. I believe that she will show up and that we will have a great time together. I am sure of it, it is still early in the day so there is still a lot of time left for us to do something.

But maybe I was a bit too optimistic because those fifteen minutes quickly turned into an hour. I was still waiting for her to arrive. I drank around 4 cups of different kinds of coffee throughout that whole hour, to not seem desperate in the eyes of the other customers and the bartenders I was pretending to work for college.

I did not actually have any work to do at all since I just had my midterms. Should I give up? Should I stop waiting for someone that is not coming anyway? It is not that I am not enjoying my alone time here. But should I really be wasting my time here waiting? I could have been playing a game right now. I could have finished that book I started. It was getting interesting. I guess I will just pretend to work on something for ten more minutes. If she doesn't show up in ten minutes it is over, I was baited by someone. All the good times I had via chat with her were wasted.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes. No! I don't want this! I checked my phone but as expected there were no new messages. Kacey hadn't send me anything. I reloaded every messaging just in case, in case something went wrong with my phone. But it was no use. Why am I still here? What am I still doing here?

Those ten minutes turned into another hour. I had been sitting here for exactly two hours four minutes and three seconds.

I give up! I am going home. I couldn't hold my tears anymore. I was set up. I was played with. I was probably catfished in some shape or form or maybe I was delusional. I have no idea what the specifics are and I honestly don't even care. I am not going to try anymore.

Why should I? love is not for me! I had hope. High hopes that my single life would be lost forever, that my first date could have been with her. but that was not the case.

I hate this. I am deleting this app immediately. I would do that if I just could move myself. If I could just get the strength to do something and move my body the way I want it to move. Why am I even responding like that to such a small let-down? Everything froze up around me, I couldn't hear anything. Everything around me went black.

This again?

Oh well I don't really care about that right now. If it happens it happens.

Whatever!

…

"Are you ok?!"

"If you can hear me just follow my instructions ok? Ok so slowly breath in. one… two… three… four… five… now hold this for a little bit. One… two… three… four… now let it all out slowly. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… Now keep on doing that I will keep counting for you. So just listen to my voice and keep breathing slowly!"

Her voice was gentle.

It was smooth.

What a wonderful voice that is. I must be in heaven. I listened to her instructions, not by choice I just followed them as if my body was responding to it. I could slowly hear everything around me again. I could feel the woman's hand on my shoulder. I didn't even notice she was sitting next to me.

I feel so embarrassed. But she helped me so I should at least thank her.

"thank you!" I mumbled.

She smiled at me.

"Do you feel better now?"

"Ye I do. Thank you again for helping me."

"Oh don't sweat it. Is it ok if I sit with you for a minute until you completely calmed down?"

"Ye sure go ahead."

We talked for a few minutes. It was actually fun and it did make me feel better. I told her my story about how I had been set up by this girl. I had trusted her even though I had never met her before even though I never heard her voice before.

We kept talking for a few hours and we had a great time, her name was Piper and I told her my name. Apparently she is around the same age as me but she sure does act like she is way older than me. Not that it is a bad thing. I think it really fits her posture. She was tall for a woman and muscular, she told me that was because she is a rock climber. What a very interesting hobby.

I haven't met many people who have that as their hobby and yet it is not a strange one I had never heard of before. She studied biology at the university close by.

We shared contact information and went on our way home.

When I arrived home I saw a message pop up. I was hoping it was from Piper but it was from the bitch Kacey instead. The message read as followed:

'Hey Anthony, I am sorry I couldn't make todays date. This new game came out and I kind of forgot about it, I know you had been looking forward to it…'

I didn't need to read the rest. She forgot because she was playing a new game and didn't even think of messaging me about it. Oh well. I blocked her on every social app. At least I got an apology. It doesn't matter anymore either. I am not over it, I will definitely need some time to get over this. But I am not mad at her, I more or less stopped caring about her. I realized that she could be anyone, her pictures could be fake her whole story could be fake. She could be asking me about money and I might have actually send it her way.

I was such a desperate fool. I am sure that such a thing can happen again so I deleted the app in its entirety. I didn't know what to do. My energy was depleted. I couldn't do anything anymore so I just ordered some pizza and went to bed.

I had a dream, I was talking with Piper. I am sure she has someone. She probably has someone waiting for her at her house. But she was such a nice person to me. Maybe I should shoot my shot. Maybe I should ask her out for a drink or something to pay her back. Well that's a problem for tomorrow me. I can start stressing about that tomorrow.

I woke up to a message on my phone, it was from Piper. She told me that she had fun and that we should hang out more.

I might have a chance!

No no no keep it out of your head. This is just her being friendly towards me. I shouldn't look deeper into it.

I couldn't be more wrong. And I was happy that I was wrong for once. This is the point of the story where I could talk about how we got together but honestly.

I can't remember it all seemed like such a dream. It all went by so fast. It went too quickly. But I still love her, I love her for how caring she is. Not only for me but also for other people. She loves me well for I have no idea what reasons but that is fine. I can tell that she is genuine.

And we lived a happy and long life. Probably.