His name was Jacob. Jacob Jerkface, we'll call him. I mean, I didn't know what his real name was right away. The username he used on PlentyofFish was actually baseballguy 82, but details, details. I'd liked his profile. It said he enjoyed Star Wars. And abhorred Final Fantasy 13. That was fine by me.
But it wasn't anything in his bio that made me feel connected to him. The apparent obsession with baseball and cards that were worth a million dollars did not in any way lead me to throwing myself at him, pleading for marriage. Nor the pictures of this ripped, overly masculine photo of Jacob Jerkface overlooking pyramids in what I assumed was Egypt. Fantastic, a man with an obsession and amazing charm that no doubt boosted his ego. Just what I needed in my deflated self esteem existence.
That wasn't it. In Jerkface's "Interested In" section, he had written something terribly odd. I couldn't believe it at first.
"Love."
Jerkface was interested in love? Not a woman with gigantic breasts and lips like a clownfish? Not someone driven by high ambitions to save the planet AND the oil-slicked ducks at the same time? Not a girl with a sweet countenance, a perfect housewife, or a supermodel to bring to parties?
Could it be, finally, after years of searching, I had found someone with the same, desperate but simple desire?
I wanted to be loved. At that point in my life, I'd been working at a dead-beat retail job, daily encountering the butt end of human tendency to be stupid, rude and ignorant. I needed to be loved. Very little love did I feel at home, with divorced parents who lived on opposite sides of the world, who kept contact only to worry about me and where I was going with my life.
Quite honestly, I didn't know where I was going with my life. The passion-for-fashion retail job was getting old, it was meant to be a temporary measure until I could save up enough to backpack through Europe alone, and compile a photographic portfolio and send it to National Geographic with my resume. It was when I'd saved up enough to get as far as Heathrow when my car broke down, and the siding on my house had disintegrated. Ten grand later, I'm in the red, my credit rating declines, they repossess my house and I'm living in the basement of what used to be my grandmother's house before she died. My parents poorly masked their disappointment. I was called many things, none of them flattering enough to repeat. My friends all scoffed at my indecisiveness about university; saying that I just wasn't motivated enough to pursue my dreams. Where had I lost my vision? What happened to my grand ambition that my fresh-faced 12th grade self had sparked?
They wept for what I used to be. It's amazing how you turn 26 and all of the sudden there is no hope for you. I felt I was too young to be disillusioned. Naivete! If only it could return. Reality kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.
But Jerkface wanted to be loved. Just like me. The vulnerable honesty touched something deep inside of me. It was like his cyber hand had reached for mine, as if to say: "may I"? Like one of those romance movies where the man asks a woman to dance with charming earnesty.
Well of course I said yes.
I mean, I messaged him 3.5 seconds after reading this revolutionary statement:
"Interested in love, hey?"
baseballguy82: "What?"
