11h52 PM. Thursday.
He could still go out, hit the first trendy bar and try to seduce a beautiful student. But he didn't like the idea of going out alone, of drinking alone, of failing alone. And he was not a student anymore, not for... 10 years. Fuck! 10 years already...
On the screen, the pretty girl was licking cum off of her lips. Henry closed the window, almost disgusted. He opened a fresh one, and googled « dating site ».
One hundred and twenty eight million answers and counting. The internet was meant to connect people indeed.
All sorts of people...
Young people, old people... White, black, brown, yellow or whatever color people... Christians or Muslims or Jews or people from any cult or weird sect. Even atheists... Rich people, beautiful people, rich and beautiful people... People from New-York or Paris or Tokyo or Dakar... Doctors, bankers, farmers, cooks or thugs... Cat people, dog people (or even just dogs)... Musicians, painters, writers or pin collectors... Straight people, gays, lesbians or asexual people... Even pedophiles, sadly... Singles, divorced people, swingers, cheaters...
At first Henry was a bit confused, having a hard time choosing what defined him the most. So he ended up doing like everyone else and chose the first site Google advised. A site for regular people.
The home page was tempting for sure. Filled with pictures of beautiful men and women, all former members, with their testimony about how they found their soulmate here and so many friends for life. Sure! Why the hell not? They all surely found a faithful pet and an exciting job too...
Henry knew that the truth was less politically correct. And harder to sell out to newcomers:
Bryan (tall, tanned, looking handsomely stupid): « I can barely spell my name correctly but I'm young and beautiful so I've fucked many girls from this site. Only once though, because I'm a very poor lover »;
Tiphany (duckfaced, busty, bikini clad, too much make up): « My profile says I'm looking for love but strangely I always end up being fucked by morons. Every other day »;
Robert (almost old, almost bald, almost fat): « I paid for the expensive premium access hoping to get laid. I Did. Once. In 6 months »;
Sylvia (plain fat, plain ugly): « No one is visiting my profile or answering me. Except to make fun of me ».
Henry hesitated. He was definitely not a Bryan but he hoped not to be a Robert either. And he had no idea which kind of girl would be interested in him. Hell, he didn't even know what kind of girl he was interested in. Surely not a Sylvia, but even a Tiphany was a bit repulsive. This kind of woman was just too much, often faking their beauty with make-up and surgery but strutting anyway, so sure of themselves. Henry pitied their lack of class and was not attracted to them at all. Ok, maybe a bit. But just for sex.
Frustration, lust, ego, curiosity and a bit of despair made Henry click on «register».
There began the assault course.
First, Henry had to choose a pseudo. Of course, "Henry" was already taken (probably by the first Henry to ever register on this site) and there was no way he would use something like Henry595. But maybe it was for the best as he never liked his old fashioned name anyway. He knew that at some point he would need to reveal it, but only after a decent first contact.
"Hank" was taken too. So was "Hank Moody*". Fuck! That would have been so cool! Even the nerdy "Hank Pym**" wasn't available anymore, not that it would have attracted many girls anyway. But as someone dared to go with "Henry VIII***", anything was possible. In fact, it was like every well-known derivative of Henry or Hank had been chosen already. How old was this site?
As he was not dumb enough to use his full name, Henry had to think very hard for a long time. After all, the pseudo was the first thing girls would see... after the picture!
Henry felt panic invade him. He opened all the image files he could find on his computer, but soon he had to face the harsh reality: he had no recent picture of himself. Not even a bad one. The most recent pictures were from last summer and his trip to Greece. With June. And all were happy couple selfies or painful pictures of too much of her skin...
So Henry surrendered and felt both stupid and ashamed to spend fifteen minutes trying to take a presentable picture with his webcam, smiling or not, trying different poses, arranging the light... At least, he didn't need to change, the white shirt was already the best he could do. He ended up with a dark photo of a stiff man trying to be mysterious.
Tired and pissed, Henry uploaded the picture (that would need to be approved by moderators) and finally went for JustAnotherGuy as a pseudo, ready to give up completely if it was already taken. Strangely, but lucky for him, it was not.
He finally went to bed, around 3 AM, more frustrated than ever.
__________
* Main character of the Showtime television series Californication, portrayed by David Duchovny.
** Real name of the Marvel superhero Antman
*** Really ?
YOU ARE READING
(Not Quite) An Autobiography
Romance"It all started on an otherwise classically dull Thursday evening. On this useless day in the middle of the week, Henry made a decision. Four months, eight days and a few hours after June left him, he decided that he'd had enough." What do you do wh...
