Chapter 1 #2
But even as my friends stepped into adulthood without me, it felt okay. I always had a relationship, or at least a situationship, to fill my apartment with noise and company.
Lana, who I started seeing around the time Aida got her own place, was great.
The love of my alternate-universe life. She wasn’t a believer in monogamy, and while I tried my best to be chill for the eight months we dated, my ugly jealous streak didn’t play well with an open relationship.
We dragged out our breakup for months of emotionally charged hookups, but she eventually moved out west, leaving my heart a bit bruised and my booty call-less.
Cal was next, a finance bro who I wasted over a year on. But still, even an annoying talking head in my apartment droning on about crypto and his AI “art” felt more comfortable than being alone with my thoughts for more than a few hours.
Then there was sad-boy Dom, and musician Tyler, and fashion designer Lisa, all burning bright for the first few months of dates and texting, then fizzling out as the newness withered and the reality of my sarcasm and emotional detachment became far less charming and much more draining.
Now, my friends are outpacing me in adulthood with their fulfilling careers and relationships while my love life is as dry as burnt toast. I don’t even have a cat to blunt my loneliness.Marinating in my patheticness, I change into my sweatpants, burrow into a nest of blankets, and pour a glass of prosecco.
And another.
Oops, and a third because in this economy I can’t afford to waste leftover bubbly, and I have far too much class to mix the flat leftovers with orange juice tomorrow morning.
Nothing pairs as well with a tipsy Friday night in as much as a social media doomscroll.
Lab rats probably have greater resistance to stimulus than me at this point.
The algorithm, which usually shows me unhinged shit posts and soup recipes, has pivoted to videos of men talking about how to be a supportive partner and offering practical examples.
While I don’t, by principle, enjoy seeing men inflate their egos further (or talk in general), these content creators seem to offer genuinely helpful advice and action items to support a significant other, so I don’t feel disdain quite so acutely as I usually would.
And then, I get the jump scare of all jump scares.
Him .
Dark, wavy hair. Piercing gray eyes and offensively thick lashes framed by tortoiseshell glasses. A jawline that could tempt a nun to sin and a rumbly voice you can’t help but imagine between your thighs.
Gorgeous and he damn well knows it.
Rylie fucking Cooper.
I’ve worked hard over the years to train my algorithms not to show me this asshole despite his prevalence and ever-growing fanbase, but the universe is a messy bitch that loves disrupting my peace of mind.
Rylie Cooper has built a platform on the fallacy that he’s the prophetic one to guide men out of toxic masculinity. This successful long con has earned him a heavily sponsored and well-listened-to podcast and over one million followers worshiping his hollow gospel.
The hypocrisy is unmatched.
I’ve always been the type of person to poke a bruise, press my tongue to a cavity, just to see how much I can make it hurt, and obsessively watching his videos over and over again when they pop up is no different, the rage growing hotter with each caress of his deep voice.
This time, like most times, he’s talking about what makes a man a good partner, particularly in bed.
As if this discarded foreskin of a person has any clue.
“If this describes your man,” Cooper starts in his low, sensual voice, holding a teeny-tiny bedazzled mic up to his perfectly formed lips, “he’s not the man for you.”
He launches into a spiel of poignant—if not obvious to actively dating women everywhere—reasons to be wary of certain behaviors, a floating notes app list greenscreened behind him. My blood starts to boil at the final three points.
“If he’s dedicated to a frat to the point that he refers to other men not biologically or familially related to him as his blood brothers, run.
” He levels a devastating look at the camera, humor glinting in his eyes.
“And if you’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in said frat house, run to a clinic that can immediately test you for communicable diseases. ”
He pauses for half a second with perfect (fucking gag me) comedic timing.
“If you try to tell him before sex or during foreplay what you really want, and he waves you off like he knows all that, then is six inches to the left, he’s not the man for you.
Do not return to his bed.” There’s an almost-imperceptible cocky tilt to his lips, like this is a problem he’s never created.
“And if you have real feelings for him or he says he has real feelings for you, then he ghosts you, he is, most definitely, not the one for you. Protect your peace, delete his number.” This one is delivered with raw sincerity, a stunning good guy acknowledging the plight of so many women.
What a crock of horse shit.
This is coming from the man whom I dated for about two months in college, an experience so awful, he scarred my love life for eternity. He is the archetype of a dirtbag and it makes me sick to my silly little stomach that he’s seduced the world into thinking he’s the patron saint of nice guys.
My drunken fingers take over, and I’m hitting “stitch” before I can even worry about the fact that I’ve never used the feature before.
Cooper’s video cuts off as he advises viewers to not return to a fumbling man’s bed, and my skeptical reflection stares back at me, lip curled and one dark eyebrow raised, my blond hair as icy as my attitude as I hit record. I keep it together for point-two seconds before bursting out laughing.
“I’m sorry,” I say through a snort. “But that video is pretty hilarious coming from the biggest fuckboy I’ve ever met.
” I cackle again, then let out a steadying breath through pursed lips.
“Either Rylie Cooper is dabbling in extremely personalized satire, or he knows his pretty privilege will allow him to get away with lying to you all.” I laugh again.
“To fuck around is human, to find out is divine, so allow me to shed some light on the truth of who he is.”
I’m unreasonably happy that my deep red lipstick I put on for shooting earlier today survived my drinking, because I am fucking feeling myself as I cock a dangerous smile at the camera.
“This guy”—I make a mental note to edit in a picture of Cooper at this spot—“took me on a handful of dates in college, filled with at least half a dozen red flags, mind you. Our relationship”—I throw in some aggressive air quotes with my free hand, my long, almond-shaped nails painted a dark green, adding extra drama to the movement—“culminated on the night he told me he had feelings for me, then made me watch him play hours of shirtless beer pong at his frat’s party.
This three-pump chump then led me to his room with a mattress on the floor—nary a fitted sheet or pillowcase in sight, I might add—then finished up what might be some of the most artless intercourse known to human history in about twelve seconds.
What an amazing first time for me, one for the diary, for sure.
He ended this fairy tale by telling me he’d call me, only to ghost me like the cliché he is. ”
A swell of vindication bubbles through me as I pause, ready to deliver the final blow. I mold my words into an arrow and take aim.
“Worst of all,” I say, staring into the camera like I’m holding his arrogant gaze, “he didn’t make me come. Not even fucking close . In fact, he might be the laziest person in bed I’ve ever had the displeasure of sharing unfitted sheets with.”
I smile, a winning, dazzling smile, as I close it all out. “So, while his warnings may ring true, Rylie Cooper is also not the man for you.”
I stop recording, check the captions for the audio, and insert a few stickers and his picture to the video, thoroughly enjoying myself as spite makes me drunker than the alcohol.
I add the song “Sweet Home Alabama” in the background to really seal the deal.
And because in my heart of hearts I am nothing more than a troll, I tag it #TheCancellationOfRylieCooper.
With a proud snort, I toss my phone to the side. No one is going to see the video and I don’t even care. I average about two-hundred views anytime I post.
It bothered me for a bit that no one is interested in what I have to say if I don’t have a wiener in my mouth, but after wading through some of the fucked-up comments on my Sausage Talk videos, it’s almost nice to have a nonexistent audience on my personal accounts…
At least, that’s what I tell myself whenever I’m feeling surly and defeated at my plateaued career.
With another proud sip of prosecco, I turn on my TV and flick through some streaming apps before deciding on The X-Files . The noise lulls me into a drowsiness that’s hard to find in silence, and I drift off, letting the TV lie to me that I’m not alone.