Stop The Cameras

Matches to Matches

"Hi, how are you today?" Pete asked the wall.

The whole concept was very silly to him. Speaking to a wall. But not really because you are speaking to a person on the other side of the same wall. What an interesting and wild idea.

"I am very well, Puppy, and how are you?" When the young man first heard his nickname he was bewildered. How was he supposed to meet people with a nickname like Puppy? But then he was introduced to his first match and he realized he got the better end out of that deal.

His first match was a man, in his late twenties who worked as a game streamer. His codename was Monkey.

Pete hated his guts. The man was so self-absorbed and would always make Pete very uncomfortable with different sexual innuendos.

He would never answer Pete's question without a sigh or a grumble as if it was an inconvenience for him. And then he continued to talk about himself.

He reminded him of those people who only sat in a chair and never did any kind of work and still found ways to complain. He would meet a lot of them when he worked in a PC cafe during his secondary school. If he was being honest, Pete was surprised to learn that Monkey was a gay man. That didn't make him any less of an incel though.

On the first day, he took more than five hours to explain how women's...

No.

Not women.

He called them "females"...

How females' lives are actually dictated by biology and how it is weird that they would oppose their nature by wanting a career.

Pete would, however, like to bet that the man opposed nature by not showering. They were separated by the wall and Pete could still smell the man. And it wasn't a nice smell.

He made the mistake of asking if the other smelled the same rancid scent, which got Monkey talking about how personal hygiene is a myth that women made up so they could reject nice guys.

When the last day came Pete couldn't be happier it was ending. He was sure that the public wouldn't vote for this man so how was he even paired with him in the first place? Maybe he put on a persona before the cameras and relaxed now that his match was asking the questions.

During their last conversation, Monkey mentioned that he hoped people would vote for him to pass on. Pete highly doubted that but just smiled and nodded. The man then told Pete that he was lucky to be paired with someone so obedient and pliant and that he would like to be matched with him again.

On the other hand, Pete wanted nothing to do with the said man. And he let him know as much. In the nicest way possible Pete tried to wean off the man's attention by saying they would be better off as friends to which Moneky flipped the switch and started attacking the younger man.

Pete has never been called a whore and a golddigger as many times as he was at that exact moment. The production crew even had to step in at one point when something hit the wall from Monkey's side. Pete doubted they would see each other again.

The young man was happy that his second match was a complete 180° turn from the first one. His code name was Tiger. When they introduced themselves to each other Pete learned that he was a man in his late forties and that he had been married before but his late wife passed away seventeen years ago.

When Pete heard the way a man talked about his wife he could feel his sincere emotions behind it all. It made him want to hear more about their love. the younger man never felt love like that or even saw it anywhere around him.

"She was the love of my life..." The man said and Pete could hear the sadness in his voice. "We've met in middle school. Her family lived on the same street as mine did. We hated each other at first."