2. Dating B.S
Gia feltoverwhelming fear and relief as she erased the last app from her phone. She would no longer have it as a fallback when feeling low. Men who wanted to get in her pants would say anything to do it, and she’d let herself believe them when she needed a boost. It had been her crutch for over a year when she wasn’t feeling confident or empowered. Chat with some random guy, let him build her up, then find something wrong with him and bail.
She supposed the correct term was “ghosting,” but she preferred to reserve that phrase for pulling a disappearing act on someone she had already physically met—like, in person. Online guys were just prospects, and most would never become anything more. Initially, she’d never even considered just fading out mid-conversation with someone when it wasn’t perfect, but it had been done to her so many times that it became no big deal somewhere along the way.
Just another reason the dating apps had to go. They were making her less considerate of others, hiding behind her phone and not forcing her to have difficult conversations aloud. No repercussions!
Gia kneeled back down and returned to weeding, carefully pulling only those plants that didn’t belong. She almost felt guilty yanking out the poor, fast-growing plants whose only mistake had been to grow in her herb bed rather than a few feet to one side or the other. To her, there was nothing wrong with a weed in and of itself—only when it got in the way of her lavender, sage, oregano, or whatever other plant it was stealing nutrients from in any given space.
In a way, they were like the men who had dared enter her life—for however briefly—over the past year. Some were okay, likable even, and maybe under different circumstances, she would have let them stay… but it was merely a long trail of wrong times, places, and men. And she was done.
As her mind wandered, her eyes suddenly flew open wide. “Dammit!” she shouted, raising a fist wrapped around a thin-leafed plant capped with purple flowers. “That was not a weed,” she muttered, eyes narrowing as she eyed the sprig of lavender she held, roots and all.
She had been babying that particular plant from a tiny seed and was waiting for it to take root and spread. Instead, she’d just plucked it from the ground. “Shit!” she exclaimed.
“Whatcha swearing about?” a female voice rang out cheerily from the other side of a tall, white fence separating her yard from the next-door neighbor’s.
“Carla, turn that chipperness down a notch, or we’re gonna have a problem,” Gia said dully, side-eying the lavender in her hand, then shifting her eyes to the fence. She placed the plant down gently on the side of the raised bed, committing to replanting it and attempting to save it later on.
“Oh, excellent. I see your garden of tranquility is having a very calming effect on you this morning.” Sarcasm oozed out with every word.
Carla pushed a loose fence post to the side and squeezed through into Gia’s backyard.
“Perhaps not inviting calm today as much as… inciting clarity!” Gia responded, touching her chin thoughtfully. “In the aftermath of last night’s shit storm of a date, I’ve made a decision.”
Carla perched herself on the edge of one of Gia’s raised garden beds and tilted her head, listening intently. “What happened last night? And what’d you decide?” Carla rested her elbows on her knees and her head in her hand.
“Remember Marco? The guy I was talking to online?”
“Yeah. The one with the dark hair and blue eyes. I remember him. I remember him well.” Carla winked. “Go on.” She nodded slowly, rolling her hand in a circular ‘continue’ gesture, clearly waiting in anticipation for the always-juicy details of yet another dating story.
Gia had to chuckle. Carla had been her next-door neighbor since Gia and her ex-husband, Steven, had moved in over a decade ago. He was long gone, but their friendship continued—and she knew it always would. Carla tapped her wrist, indicating the time was ticking away, and the story remained untold. In some ways, Gia thought Carla enjoyed her online dating exploits significantly more than she herself did.
“Okay, okay. I’m getting there,” Gia responded. “Marco, as it turns out, is married!”
“Like, in an open marriage?”
“Nope. No, no, no. A plain, old, stereotypical, monogamous marriage, in theory, anyway. Obviously, not in practice. The type of marriage in which the wife doesn’t have even the faintest clue that her husband is browsing dating sites while she’s doing the dishes. The kind where she calls in the middle of the date and goes completely off the rails—fairly so—because her friend sees him from across the bar sitting with another woman—me. That type of married.”
“Ooooh, shit. That type of married. I’m sorry, girl.”
“For fuck’s sake, Carla. What does a woman have to do to find a decent man who wants a relationship and who isn’t a cheating bastard?” Carla merely shrugged. “Which brings me to my next point,” Gia continued. “I’m done! Officially, one hundred percent done and out of this dating game nonsense.”
“Are you, though?” Carla asked, knowing she’d heard this all before.
“I am! This one takes the cake. He was married! Apps are deleted. Profiles erased. I’m dating myself from here on out! I’m closed for business.”
As Gia spoke, she raised her phone to eye-level with Carla, swiping the screen on to illustrate the intentional disappearance of the ‘Dating B.S.’ folder. “See? Gone!”