He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Chapter One: The Best Love Stories Start with a Meet-Cute

"That's why you need to stop using dating apps. The only good way to meet someone is in person," Maya said through the speaker of my phone as I stared at the murky water in front of me. 

I rolled my eyes.

I could have recited those words as if they were a famous poem, she said them so often. It's excatly why I didn't want to call her and tell her about the horrible Tinder date I went on the night before, but what choice did I have?

It was pretty awful.

We spent about 50% of the date just staring at each other, before one of us finally had the guts to just end the video chat. I'm still not sure which one of us did it.

I had to tell someone about it, and being my best friend, Maya was my best choice. It's not like anyone else would have been any better, anway.

My mother would have told me to stop using those damn apps and wait on god and my little sister was too preoccupied with her own boy troubles to listen to me rant. It was either Maya or no one. The latter was starting to look pretty good at this point, though.

"What's the difference between meeting someone on an app and in person? It's the same people, isn't it?" I asked, as the tug on the brown leash in my hands caught my attention.

I glanced down at the grass to see my small, plump, brown, corgi, Coco, sniffing at the grass, her tiny rump wriggling in happiness as she searched for whatever treasures lay beneath the dirt.

"It's really not," Maya almost sounded insulted as she responded, "Dating apps are for the desperate-weirdos who couldn't get anyone to date them in real life."

"Excuse me," I said, catching the attention of an older gentleman jogging past me on the red path behind me. 

I smiled politely at him and turned a little more so he could see the blue cell-phone pressed to my ear. He nodded in understanding and continued on his way, though that didn't stop the embarrassment that welled up inside of me.

A walking trail in the park probably wasn't the best place to have this conversation, but considering the fact that my job as an Elementary English teacher kept me busy, practically the entire day, 6 pm on a Sunday was the only time I could get in a good walk with my dog. So, it was either now or never.

"Sorry, sorry, that's not what I meant," Maya said, "Though, you shouldn't really be upset. You're not single because no one wants you. You're single because you have serious tunnel vision."

"It's not tunnel vision, it's focus," I said, as Maya chuckled. 

"Yeah, well whatever you want to call it, it's kept you from ever getting a date. You're practically a virgin in the dating world. You need to start in real life and then move to apps when that inevitably fails."

I couldn't help laughing out loud, no longer caring about any of the other people walking around the park hearing me. It was late anyway. The sky was turning into that darker shade of blue as the sun shot it's last few rays of light through the sky. 

It looked really beautiful over my view of the ginormous lake that sat right smack in the middle of my local parks walking trail. At least it would have, if not for the distance sight of cars passing by on a highway and the murky color of the polluted lake near my feet.

"Fails? I thought you were the one preaching for in person connection?"

"I am, but it doesn't always work out."

"How is that any different from a dating app?" 

I chuckled.

Maya was making no sense to me. It seemed that dating app connections were just as likely to fail or succeed as real life connections, so why did it matter which one I participated in?