Who are you?

A possible opening chapter to a story about the perils of online dating and the dark side of the web

PinkPrincess78 described herself as a ‘Friendly, shy girl in her mid-twenties seeking fun and friendship’.

Ross clicked on the ad and, without even looking at the photo, went to the ‘send message’ icon. He pasted a paragraph of text in the message; the same paragraph of text he had pasted to a million other girls on this site, and countless others.

‘Hey, what part of the city are you from? I’m a decent looking, outgoing and friendly guy. Not looking for anything too serious, so let me know if you fancy a chat.’

Send.   

           

He checked his inbox, not surprised to find ‘no new messages’ in bold at the top of the page. He adjusted his glasses, took a sip of water, clicked the search bar to find the next ad on the list �" Curvy88 �" and pasted his message. The same old routine.

Minutes went by, hours, and sometimes even full days like this. He rarely altered his message, never personalising it for the recipient, all in the vain hope of finding someone willing to respond. Sometimes they did, but more often than not the only messages he received were from opportunistic gay men. Sometimes he replied to those ones, just for something to do, but he was never tempted.

Strangely, he knew that if he went out to pubs, bars or nightclubs, he could pick up a girl. Ok, she might not be the prettiest girl in the place, but he could do it. Sometimes he did. But to him, there was no thrill in that. The thrill was chatting to the stranger online, not having to deal with the face to face. He could think about every response, every lie he wanted to tell them. He could keep a record of everything he said, everything she said. If he met her out in a bar, he had to rely on his ability to keep a conversation going, and that was never going to be a good idea.

He clicked back on his PutneyGuy88 profile page, and went back to the search function. He clicked on the next ad, Misty90, but before clicking ‘send message’ he noticed a line at the bottom of the ad. ‘Please think about your message, I won’t reply to one liners’. Ross hesitated for a second. Not to think about what to write. No. He had had an idea.

Quickly, he signed out of his account and went to the site’s home page. He clicked on the ‘new users’ tab and on a link that said ‘JOIN NOW’. Up popped a page asking for all of his details. This time, instead of putting in his own information, he began to create a new profile.

First name: Amy

Age: 25

Location: London

Looking for: Fun, friendship

If he wasn’t getting any messages as a guy, maybe he could try as a girl. See what other guys write in their messages, get some ideas. It was worth a shot.

After he had filled all the information out, he clicked ‘create new user’ and it sent him to a landing page of a brand new profile. He typed some random words in to Google images, found a photo of a girl who looked around 25 from a news story from 2007, and used it as Amy’s profile picture. He entered a few more details about her interests, hobbies, favourite books, films, music and career interests. Pretty soon, a brand new, fictional Amy was born.

It felt pretty strange, to make someone up like this, but Ross wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. He clicked through the final stage of the process, and a new message popped up in the inbox. ‘Welcome Amy, and good luck in your search. From the Administrator’

Ross stood up and stretched out his long arms and then his legs. He put his circular-framed glasses on the table by his laptop and rubbed his eyes. He looked down at the clock at the bottom of his screen. 2.15pm. His shift at the pub didn’t start for almost six hours. He picked up his coffee mug and took it to the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten anything all day, so he put some bread in the toaster while he waited for the kettle to boil and stood, leaning on the window frame.

From his flat on the second floor, he could see Putney High Street and the Spotted Horse pub where he worked. He didn’t love it here, far from it, but he lived alone and that was perfect for him. Expensive rent, but mostly covered by his parents. His wages were spent on drinking and food, in that order, and he had no other obligations aside from the occasional bill. Again, his parents were often more than willing to help him out. At 28, he knew he ought to feel guiltier about that, but as the only child he figured it was fair.

The toaster popped, awaking Ross from his thoughts. He buttered his toast, made an instant coffee and went back through to his seat on the living room sofa. With one slice of toast in his mouth, he put the plate and mug on the coffee table. Taking a bite, he moved the cursor up to the top of the page, clicked on the inbox and almost choked.

103 new messages!

Jesus. He looked at the clock in the corner, 2.19pm. More than a hundred messages in less than five minutes! He scanned down, trying to read the first few words of each one. It was useless. Too much information, too many people, too many words! Is this what it was like to be a woman on here? He clicked on the inbox again, to see if it changed. 132 messages now. My god. He hit refresh, and it went up to 139. Then 144. Messages were coming in every second.

He took another bite of toast, a sip of coffee, and pushed the plate and mug to the side. He put his glasses back on, took a notepad from the coffee table, clicking his pen to take notes. What did these guys say? What did they want? How much did they write, or how little? Were they direct, were they friendly? Here we go, he thought, clicking on the first message.  

‘Hey, how you doing?’

Well, so much for that, he thought, and hit delete.

Number 2. ‘What’s up? How u enjoying the site?’ Delete.

Number 3. ‘Wanna chat?’ Delete.

Number 4. Delete.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

The first 14 messages went straight to the rubbish bin. Christ, thought Ross, is this what it feels like? To have this many guys sending bullshit messages with no content. He thought back to his own message.

‘Friendly, shy girl in her mid-twenties seeking fun and friendship’.

My god. DELETE.

He carried on, unperturbed.

‘Oral for reward?’ from Horny SW Guy. No thanks. Delete.

‘Want to have sex outdoors?’ asked Mature48 from Fulham. Delete, but this one did at least draw a smile from Ross.

‘Might as well be honest, I’m a virgin and need someone to help’ begged WellEndowed18, from Wandsworth. Delete.

There was very little content for the notebook. Requests for sex, messages saying ‘hi how r u’, nothing with any substance. But every time he clicked on the inbox, another flood of messages. After almost an hour of reading them, deleting them, refreshing the page, writing down the occasional decent message (one of them even used quotes from fictional Amy’s favourite book, Little Women) the messages were still coming in, and fast.

Ross went to take a sip of coffee, but his mug was empty. He clicked on the inbox one more time before going to make a coffee. Scanning the page as often as he had, the messages had begun to blur in to one for Ross. But this time, one of them stood out and made him sit forward on the sofa. The title said simply: ‘I know who you are’. Tilting his head, Ross clicked on the message. Instantly, he felt his stomach sink and he almost dropped his empty mug. The message was only two words, but they were two words that he had not anticipated. And they made him feel sick to the stomach.

‘Hi Ross’.

 

Reviews

[Marie]

Youcan't get away with much on the Internet, can you?
Good story.

[catwoman]

It was a really interesting story and i can say with certainty that you have no reason to doubt your writing skills :) the theme of the story is so very common...i totally loved the ending :D

[Roni Archer]

Thanks catwoman :) I will try to develop this in to something longer in the future.....be interesting to discover who knows his secret

[catwoman]

yes you should...i am guessing it's the Misty90 girl :D