Swiped

Swipe

Luke

Swipe

"No"

"Yes"

"What are you talking about? Do you not notice the hairy chin?" I argued. "So not my type."

"Oh grow up Luke. That's barely a wispy tuft. Some people just naturally have them," Helen exclaimed. "There's nothing wrong with it from a biologically standpoint."

"But how did she even grow one in the first place? My god, from the looks of it, I bet it's coarser than Sasquatch's pubes," I voiced, shuddering to myself.

We are in Helen's room as is routinely the place we hang out in the evenings after school. Helen, being the so-called "helpful" and "caring" friend that she is, is helping me score some girls for my dating profile.

We sat in her bed testing out the latest dating app I downloaded this morning. It took the market by storm last June and now nearly everyone on the online dating scene is using Swiped, an exclusive platform to meet potential significant others.

The rules are simple: Create a dating account for yourself on the app. Include cute or attractive pictures to bait other users. Add funny or unique catchphrases in the bio to reel them in. Other people's profile will randomly pop up in your feed. Swiping left on means there will be no chance of us matching. Whereas if the both of us happened to swipe right on each other, the app will match the two of us and a new function will pop up in our settings that lets us chat with each other.

Me and Helen unanimously agreed to find ourselves a date in time for Valentine's next year. God forbid the both of us spend another 14th of February drowning our sorrows down a bottle of cheap wine while watching reruns of Bridget Jones diaries.

I swiped left. This automatically brought up a new profile. Ignoring Helen's protests (does she really think that badly of my taste in girls?), we checked out the new profile. This next one was a girl in her late 20's. Clean shaven this time I made a mental note on that. Average height with strawberry blond hair. The first pic showed her posing beside a Porsche in the shadow of a mansion. In the next picture, she was surrounded by a crowd of girls around a table in an exclusive club with a very wide and very fake smile. Obviously she was a magnet for parties. I imagine wild nights and drunken stupors if I ever matched with this one.

"This seems a bit excessive," I mumbled. It irked me how often people with the means like to low key play up their wealth in dating profiles. "What do you think?" I ask Helen's opinion. Normally people tend to include only the very best of themselves in their profiles. This is normal, for even I am guilty of it. But I strongly dislike, what my sister calls, "fake bitches".

"She seems alright I suppose. A bit mature for you. Strikes me as a one night stand. Me thinks she's more of Caleb's preference," she said referring to another friend that we share who unfortunately, due to other commitments couldn't be here today.

I frowned. "Firstly, we're not looking for Caleb's match. Secondly, no one-night stands. I'm ready for an actual, stable relationship. A nice girl preferably devoid of facial hair to go on dates and with some luck, get married and grow old with. Someone to have kids, get a house and travel the world with me. The works."

Helen snickered at my cheesy sentiment and then realised I was dead serious. "I dunno, that sounds about as likely as striking the lottery while being eaten by a shark." She mused.

I swatted Helen's arm playfully. She dodged and stuck out her tongue at me. "If you're interested, I could try setting you up with Kayla. Coax her to get it on with my little Lukey" she joked.