Page 23 - WTPVolI Vol.#4

Discount Cheesecake
There was nothing at all wrong with her thinking that for a first date Ikea would make the perfect place. I mean, it was full of the stuff to play house in, right, and isn’t that what all boys and girls eventually want to do together, after the initial shock and awe of the starry- eyed meeting, the swapping of chemical trails, the first awkward kiss and the even more awkward of the initial sexual, more of a wrestling than encounter, the game of pretending that it will all work out if the house looks perfect, if the sofa matches perfectly with the end table and, oh my fucking god, just look at how the pattern in the rug makes the room absolutely POP.
This is what people did today, she told herself, and convincingly so, nodding her head in silence, in the Starbucks that she knew would always have the corner table open, her office, you see, her cubicle in this horrendous loneliness of hers and everyone else’s life, in this thing called “internet dating”. I mean, with all the money in the world and all the ease and comfort we have in the post-Digital Age, it was just so hard to meet people in the real, that is, the old fashioned way, meaning taking a chance, looking around at the who’s who surrounding you, stepping outside one’s own comfort zone, of making con- tact. It was just so much easier and maybe, frankly, practical, to stare into the device, at the filtered pictures, and this, you see, is a form of self-imposed literature so that we can create better or simply unreal versions of ourselves, so we can dream that his hair really is that well-coiffed, that he’s not too into sports, nor just prowling in the ether world for
a pic of a one-time wrestling match to post on his wall, for the new lipstick case that we etch, that he is indeed a family man because, of all things in this ridiculous life, he agreed to meet on a first date in an Ikea café, over a cup of super-cheap yet European coffee and a slice of exotic dessert cake or pie, and from there, they can go directly into stage two: home décor. All the steps would then easily fall into place because this was the nature of life now, sort of like one of those menu cards you fill out and turn in at the counter, look- ing around, hoping and wishing that the meal or the person of your dreams will just show up, and that he will be exactly what you and only you and no other girl in this wide, wild world has ordered.
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