Ready or Not

Chapter 5

This morning, you wake up feeling rested. You have a couple of students that you need to tutor this morning, but besides that, you have no other commitments. Well, except for that hike you promised to go on with Namjoon this afternoon. You realize that you've told yourself you would deal with the messages on that dating app, and you decide to at least read the content of the messages and decide if you are going to reply to any of them if you do at all. With the fridge door wide open, you try and see what you would want to do for breakfast, but nothing moves you. Maybe cereal? No milk. That's grand. Deciding to forgo breakfast completely, you get your tutoring materials together, pack your backpack and get things ready. You still have an hour or so to kill, so you settle for checking those messages.

When you open up the app, you are immediately overwhelmed. You see that the unanswered messages have now grown to thirty-eight and all kinds of notification that say that you've been matched with people around you. Ignoring the notifications, you decide to open your inbox. Opening the very first message, you are a little apprehensive. Most likely because of the warnings that you got from both Namjoon and Warren. The first message says,

I see that you are into biking. What do you love most about it?

You think, "That's innocuous. Nothing treacherous or douche-baggy about that one." Encouraged by the harmless message, you open the next one.

I need to ask you a very serious question, and your answer will have overwhelming consequences for the both of us... Milk chocolate or Dark chocolate?

This one is just silly but definitely more flirtatious than the first one. You make a note of it to check out the man's profile later. You tap the next message on your phone screen to get the third one opened.

Name top three things that you cannot live without – Ready. Set. Go!

You wonder if all of these messages will be this silly. You think, "I don't know, and I will not let you pressure me into answering it."

Hello, I don't want to sound completely shallow, but as I was going through this app, your picture stuck out to me, so I decided to message you. Your profile says that you are in graduate school. What are you studying? I would like to find out a little more about you. So, if you'd like, you can message me back and maybe we can find out if meeting in person would be worth our time? Looking forward to hearing back from you.

This one seems like he had put in some time looking at your profile and decided to reach out after some consideration. Unlike those other one-liners, this one is definitely more thoughtful. You flag this message as well, thinking that you will check out his profile and see if you'd be interested in messaging this one back. You tell yourself that you'll check one more message before you need to leave for work.

Hey, Gorgeous. DTF?

You think, "What does DTF mean?" You look at the clock on your wall and it says 10:30. Realizing that you should have left ten minutes ago, you decide to put off Googling what DTF means until later on. You rush out of your apartment, carrying your backpack and your bike. Luckily, you get to the first tutoring location right on time. You only have two students for today. And both sessions go quite well. Both sets of parents inform you that their sons' grades in classes that you have been tutoring have improved significantly. You love to hear that the work you are doing with the kids is actually paying off.

By the time you get out of the last house to head back home, you see that you have text messages from Namjoon and Warren in a group chat with Eric and Nate. You think, "Oh, look. Seamless assimilation has actually occurred. I have been accepted by the natives as an honorary one of their own." You chuckle to yourself. "I wonder what Jane Goodall would say about this."