Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
S unday
It was a very hazy Sunday, and I woke, remembering that I’d received a late-night text from Harry the night before, just after I arrived home. I remembered that I’d texted him back almost immediately, then passed out about two minutes later.
I checked my phone thinking that I’d dreamt the Harry text, but I hadn’t.
‘Hello strange man. How’s tricks? Shame you didn’t make it to the party and miss how CRAP it was. Anyway, just thought you might fancy a slurp next week?’
Unfortunately, it appeared that I had composed a completely nonsensical reply in my inebriated and knackered state:
‘Ho, yes thank. What is a weekend for yo?’
Shit. I quickly sent him another one.
‘Hey! Bloody autocorrect! I meant, yes please… what are you up to at the weekend? Sorry, I’m VERY hungover today.’
He texted back .
‘All right Oliver Reed, how about next Saturday? Fancy a drive to a country pub? Maybe Kent or somewhere?’
I maintained the rally:
‘Deal.’
He returned:
‘Cool. It’s supposed to be really nice there.’
It turned out that Deal was actually a place in Kent. I had no energy or brain power to continue this discussion, so terminated the conversation with a, ‘Sweet, let’s sort it out in the week.’
After a long nap and ‘The Works’ from my beloved local Domino’s, my head was beginning to feel normal again.
I was pretty happy that Harry had asked me out, although there was now a pesky niggle at the back of my mind telling me that if things did work out with us, I’d definitely have to give up all of this fun dating business and all of these wild adventures that seemed to be becoming the norm.
The trouble was that I was now really beginning to enjoy myself on the dating scene.
Every day I’d chat to a new guy and hatch a brand new exciting online relationship with a gorgeous picture on a screen.
It was becoming harder and harder to give up.
Maybe if I just went crazy this week, that’d get it all out of my system and then I could put it all behind me and settle down with Harry?
Tuesday
“Oi!” cried Mum as she and Silly Bollocks walked through the front door. Finn had just picked her up from chemo, and they’d stopped off at ours for some reason. “You berk,” she continued .
“What?” I asked, baffled. “You little shit, Finn, did you tell her about the-“
Finn interrupted me with a loud cough, which thankfully my mother dismissed as she continued on her tirade.
“I’ve just been talking to that lovely Jack at the hospital and he told me what you’ve been up to.”
“Up to? I haven’t been up to anything. Well, certainly nothing that you’d be that upset about.”
Finn was standing behind her, tightly pressing his lips together and trying desperately not to laugh.
“Don't be a smart-arse. He told me you've been sending pictures of your bloody … y’know…”
“What? I haven't, I swear! What’s the best that would happen if I did? He’d show his mates and laugh. Done. I'd never do that.”
“Well, Jack tells me that he was chatting to you on some Bumblebee app or something and you sent him a dick pic. Oh, and I know what a dick pic is, by the way. What’s all that about? I thought I’d brought you up better than that, Daniel.”
“Ahhhh! I can totally explain. I have NEVER sent a dick pic. I swear. No, wait. I mean one that wasn't asked for. And even then… once. Twice. Never mind. Look… let me find the message and…” I fumbled through my phone. “Oh, shit. I forgot he unmatched me.”
Mum folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. “He’s such a nice young man… I mean…”
“No, wait, listen. I matched with him and for a joke, I asked him if he wanted to see a dick pic and sent him this.” I showed her the Dick Van Dyke picture.
“See? It came through pixelated, he couldn't decode it, thought I was a scumbag, and that was that. Ah man… THAT’S why they were all laughing at me.
Oh, you've got to explain to him… it was a mistake.”
Mum burst out laughing. “You wally. All right, I believe you. What is it with these blokes and pictures of their bloody dicks?”
“I dunno. I honestly don’t. How do you know so much about them, anyway?”
“Huh? Oh, I may or may not be on Sliderr,” she whispered incoherently.
Finn’s eyes widened.
“Sliderr?” I cried, before continuing. “Absolutely not for you. I know what blokes are like on dating apps, and you can do way better. Show me your age-range immediately.”
“No! Anyway, why not? Loads of my friends are on it. Chris likes your little joke about the Airfix model, by the way.”
“Chris is on it?” I said, in disbelief and horror that Mum’s best friend had been eyeing my profile, and furthermore, had possibly decided not to swipe positively.
“Yeah. He’s having a lovely time. Says he’s on some site called Toyboy Emporium as well. I just thought, you know, what with all that’s going on, I could do with a bit of fun in cas...”
She paused. I knew what she was refraining from saying next. She wasn't responding to her treatment and I knew that she thought she didn't have much time left, but just didn't want to spook me.
“Okay, well, be careful. There are a LOT of pricks out there.”
“Ooh, don’t I know it.” She laughed, playfully slapping my forearm. “What about you boys, anyway?”
Finn puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. “Work in progress,” he said, before continuing. “I’ve gotta skedaddle, anyway. Booze tonight?” he said, turning to me.
“Sorry, mate… date.”
“For f… tomorrow?”
“Another date.”
“Thursday?”
I winced.
“Fuck it. Give me a bell when you're around. See you later, Mum.”
“Oh, don’t bother asking me out for a drink, will you?” said Mum.
“Shit. I didn't… I mean. Fancy a drink tonight?” said Finn.
“Date. Sorry,” said Mum.
“Tomorrow?”
“Another date.”
“You know what? I’m off,” said Finn as Mum and I both pissed ourselves.
My face morphed into a serious one. “You're joking about the two-date thing, right?”
“No. I can see why it’s so addictive, you know.”
“Hmm. Well, good luck, I suppose.”
“Thank you, darling. So, who’s the next lucky man for you?”
“Steve,” I said.
“Well, be nice to him. Ciao for now.”
“Will do. Love you, Mum.”
“And you, Lovely.”
As I went for my morning shwipe, I decided to search for Chris on Sliderr to swipe on him, just to find out whether Mum’s best friend had a secret crush on me. It appeared that he didn’t. Damn, he was quite the DILF as well, you know .
Today, I had a lunch date lined up with a guy called Steve who wasn't great on the chat, but I fancied him a lot, so of course that was enough to warrant a meeting. Besides, it was a safety date with a one-hour cap on it, so if it went Southern Rail, I could just scarper.
It turned out that this was a date that really made me tighten up my admin skills.
First of all: a bit of history. About a month ago, I had been on a date with another guy called Steve, who was, for want of a better description, an awful person.
We’ll call him ‘Bad Steve’. He was great on the old texts, but when I met him in person, I had literally nothing in common with him.
He was rude, brash, racist and talked about nothing except how much money he made, and yet at the same time, failed to buy a single drink.
Although that may have been because we only stayed for one in the end, but still.
Last week I got chatting to another guy called Steve from a very reputable dating app, and as was the modern way, I'd started to text him. Via text, we arranged a date for this Tuesday. What I hadn’t paid much heed to was that this brand-new Steve did seem rather familiar on the old ‘text banter’ front.
So, who should turn up today? Bad Steve! It seemed that I had been texting Bad Steve all along by mistake because I made the rookie error of not distinguishing who was who with a simple app abbreviation-job title combo tagged on to his contact details.
I was so confused by the appearance of Bad Steve that I thought it was by mere coincidence that he'd turned up. Why the hell would he want to come out on a second date, anyway? Then, to make things worse––about two minutes later, New, potentially alright Steve walked in. It turned out that I’d somehow been texting them both, thinking that I’d been texting one person, and had arranged the same date with both of them.
I’d actually saved both their numbers within the same contact in my phone. What an absolute goon.
I immediately jumped up and told Bad Steve, “I’m really sorry, but I’ve just been texted by my dry cleaner and he says I have to pick up my trousers right now because there’s a problem.”
Those were my exact words. I don’t know where the hell they came from.
I managed to slip out unharmed and unseen by New/Possibly Good Steve, and waited for him to text me, enquiring where on Earth I was. I then played dumb and pretended that I’d got the wrong day. The whole thing was so stressful, I didn’t even bother to reschedule.
Wednesday
An awful day. I’d been dating ‘professionally’ now for a while, and as far as stalkers went, I had completely lucked out.
Online dating was a strange beast. You could build up weird little sexually charged relationships with people in cyberspace without ever even meeting them.
It just so happened that over the last few months, I had been doing this very thing with a couple of people.
One of those people was called Freddy, a tall, rainbow-haired, edgy looking, punky type of guy.
We were conducting a ‘no-holds-barred’ type of text affair.
I had been chatting to him via the medium of one of Ben’s darker dating sites, and this man had some absolutely nutty ideas about what good sex was. Nutty, but kind of intriguing .
Anyway, it turns out that Freddy was a bit of a stalker, as I was about to find out. Stalkers come in all shapes, sizes and threat levels:
Green level