“What the heck? How is this possible?” I said astonished by what I’ve seen in my hand. I can hardly believe it but I saw my parents name across a profile. I checked once more, not a single difference between the names. I mused, why would my parents both download a dating app? Perhaps they’re just playing a game with each other, I thought. But this theory was overthrown by me as soon as I remembered my parents were’nt even willing to talk to each other lately. I then had the worst of all qualm, they cheated on their own significant other. I sincerely hope that it wasn’t what I thought it was. But one Sunday, I had seen both my father and mother hug with a stranger that I don’t know. To be very honest, I’m disappointed in them to cheat when they still have a kid to raise, my brother.

“Father, are you cheating on my mother?” I queried him as I can’t hold it anymore. He look baffled by my words.

“Of course not, what made you think I did?” He replied in a tone like he’s actually surprised by my question.

“I saw you in a dating app!” I declared irritated by my father’s dishonesty. But abnormally, he laughed out loud.

“You thought we were the one who use the app?” My father uttered, asking a seemingly stupid question to me.

“Who else could it be?” I said to him, and he pointed toward my brother’s room. And then I realized that it was my brother who had been using the dating app, not my parents.

“But who was the girl that hugged you on Sunday?” I asked my one last question.

“That’s my sister, your aunt” He answered finally, and that’s how this event ended.

I sat in my older sister’s car with the engine idling in front of a red light. Thing had been red for like five minutes. At this rate I wasn’t gonna be home until six, and my mother was making those famous burritos. I really wanted them. I sighed. To pass the time, I switched on the radio. My sister gave me the evil eye but allowed it after I switched to her favourite station.

The radio person was talking about something. “…there’s this kid right here in this town, like twelve or thirteen years old. She’s been going viral on instagram because of her awesome singing. Literally all of her songs, you can’t tell the difference between her and the original song, she’s so good! Here is one of her songs, then we’ll play the original.”

Curiously, I turned on my phone and went to Instagram. There was the kid. I was a bit curious to learn more, but then the light finally turned green and Sis gunned it for home. When she guns it, you literally cannot move. You are pressed against your seat.

Later, I scrolled casually through Tinder on my phone. It was a thing I liked to do; I was happy single, but it was just amusing to see the profiles. Anyways, I was scrolling through, chuckling at a few, when I came across a profile that makes me laugh. It’s the kid they were talking about on the radio. I take a closer look. Her name is Natalie, she is twelve and a half. I read her profile and discover she likes to read, write, bake, act, sing, of course, and enjoys all sports but baseball. She’s also a babysitter. I clicked away and sent out a message:

Do u want 2 get 2gether? There’s this nice park downtown.

A few minutes later, she responds with:

Sure. I’m good Sunday night at 7 if u can forward directions.

I type back:

Gr8. It’s the 1 on Ridge Road, the James Cook Memorial park. The one by the library. See u Sunday.

Call me crazy. I’ve only ever had one date on this thing in my whole long life. But, meh. It might do me some good. Mom and Dad are always getting on my nerves to get going on finding my soul mate.

Sunday rolls around before I know it. I get home early to get ready. Mom is still out so I microwave some cold leftover chicken nuggets and fries. There isn’t much left, so I grab some pickles to fill my whining stomach a bit more and add some balance to my palate.

Then it’s time to get ready. I pull on a black t-shirt and jeans (my idea of dressed up) and pop a cap on. I pull on a hoodie, too. Then it’s time to go. I hurry outside then begin walking to the park. It’s not far, I can’t drive, and Mom and Dad have the cars out tonight anyways.

I arrive at the park and wait. Soon a kid bikes up to me. She has . “Are you Natalie?” I ask.

“Are you Jordan?” She retorts.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Ok, and yes, I’m Natalie.” She puts her bike up on the bike rack. We start walking down the path.

“Have you had any relationships before?” I ask to break the silence.

“Yeah. This one kid named Jay. He was a jerk, though, so I dumped him.”

I inwardly shudder at the ease of which she says this. If we even begin to develop a serious relationship I better watch myself.

“You know, I’m not really looking for a serious relationship anymore, really,” she comments softly, as though reading my thoughts.

“Neither do I, even though Mom and Dad are always begging me to get a girlfriend for the prom, even though that’s like two years off. I don’t get the idea! Why can’t I be peacefully single?”

She laughs. I kinda like her laugh. It’s real, not forced, and soft. Tilting her head in a cute way, she looks up at me. “Yeah. With me, it’s the opposite, with my dad especially. ‘NO BOYS!’ ‘I made you a custom bed that can’t hold more than one regular teenager/tween!’ ‘Remember, no getting married until 67, or kids until 89!’ I mean, I already don’t really care one way or the other. It’s not like I’m rebelling, sneaking out and kissing under the moon. He doesn’t have to be so serious about it.”

“He’s probably joking about the marrying at 67, though,” I smirk.

“Probably, but with my dad you can never tell.”

The conversation drifts off the romance topic. We talk about regular life, school, siblings, our favourite food, etc. We talk for over an hour, and we’re coming back to the bike rack. I realize that we’ve bonded, in ways I haven’t with any new friend before. Like, we’re destinied to be together.

Aw, crap. Now I’m thinking like one of those mushy-brained romance novels.

I notice something familiar in the bushes… two wonky ceders, curving to form an open doorway in the otherwise-sealed off brush. A memory sparks. An old secret. All at once I have a sudden desire to reveal the secret to Natalie. It would be nice to share this with her.

“Natalie,” I burst out, “can I show you something??”

She gives me a strange look. “Suure, I guess?”

I lead her through the ceder door and down the little path through the wood behind it. Bursting out of the woods, we’re in my secret place.

“This is my thinking place,” I say proudly, gesturing around. The path is the only opening in the back, so it feels like you’re in your own little corner of the world. Night or day, it’s always lit. The large rock ledge with a tiny teepee that 6-year-old-me constructed looks out onto a still, quiet lake reflecting beautiful bright constellations of starts in the clear, cool night sky. It was breathtaking then, and it’s still breathtaking now. I look over at Natalie. She’s looking around in awe, her eys reflecting the sky.

“This is brilliant,” she breathed.

“I know!” I grin. “It’s been my little private place ever since I found it. Whenever we came to the park, because there was a fence, Mom let me and my sister run wild. So I spent most of my time here.”

“It’s so peaceful.” Natalie inhales the air. A loon coos somewhere on the water.

We sit on the edge of the ledge, our legs dangling in the open. “You know what?” I whisper. “Forget what I said earlier, Natalie. I really do like you.”

“That’s funny, because that’s what I was thinking about you,” she smiles back playfully.

We’re leaning into each other before we even realize what’s happening. Her kiss is soft and tender, fresh and minty. I feel a sense of intense joy and lean even closer, as we wrap oursleves in each other. As we pull apart, we smile at each other once more, and I whisper, “It’s serious now, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she whispers, and then we’re kissing again, tasting love and togetherness and something like joy.

This is absolutely the last dating app I’m trying. I’ve been on three before this one and there wasn’t a single right swipe. Well, that’s not true. There was one, but I was actually trying to flick a piece of shredded cheese that fell off my taco from my screen. That DM was an awkward one. No offense to the guy, but he didn’t even check his profile picture before he posted it. I need a bit classier than someone smiling into the camera while sitting on the toilet. Mirrors, people. Seriously. But I’m giving it one last try with a new app aptly named “Why Not?”.

I’ve been scrolling for half an hour now, only partially paying attention while multitasking my way through some work files and dirty dishes. So far I’ve seen a couple I took note of that seemed like they may be interesting, if nothing else. But about six left swipes later I dropped my jaw and then I dropped my phone. And, no, it wasn’t because the man was ‘knock your socks off’ gorgeous, although he could definitely be considered as such. It was more or less the only response my brain had at the time to the shock of who the face belonged to. My very, very married ex husband, Thomas. Carly, his wife of SIX WEEKS, just got their wedding photos back and posted her favorites to all her socials. There are TikTok videos of the reception! Now, here is where I’m conflicted. See, I know it’s not an old account because he had shoulder length hair up until she asked him to cut it before the wedding and his hair is short here. So I could definitely show Carly the profile, but, she is the kind of person that would say I made this up and created this out of jealousy. I’m somewhat of a technical genius and I’m totally capable of doing that. Easy peasy. And since we got divorced because he left me for her, that could very easily seem plausible. I could email Thomas and tell him I know his secret. I could make a fake social and send Carly the link. I could also just leave it all the way alone. After pondering my options for what felt like hours, I decided the best thing I could do…was swipe right.

‘Dad?!’ I gasp. This cannot be happening! I look between my phone and out my window in my car. Here I thought while I have a quiet five minutes in my car before work, I’ll try swiping left and right to find the one - such an innocent thought. This is not what I expected to see at 7.15am on a Monday morning.

Now I know mum and dad have been split for a few months now, but why the hell is he coming on my screen? I have protocols in place so I don’t see people above 35, as I am 29…dad is 51.

Should I click it? Do I want to click it? Yes I do, but once I open it - there is no going back. I am going to have to bleach my eyes. This is going to go into that little black box in my brain that will forever be forgotten.

My thumb hesitates to click the button that will bring up his profile. I take a deep breath, rest my head on my seat, and say a silent prayer. Please Dad, please no sexy talk from you be on your profile!

My thumb begrudgingly touches the screen. Okay he has written 30 as his age - dad no way you only look 30. The first picture I saw was one in his work uniform- at least he is clean shaven and looks somewhat presentable. Second picture- blank. Huh. How you gonna get the ladies dad with one pic?

I scroll down to his bio.

‘A king looking for his queen’ I groan as I say this out loud. How cringey. Good to know that you consider yourself a king you alcoholic cheater. But good to know.

Hobbies - loves walks on the beach, camping, travel.

Hmm I know the camping one as that’s where you like to drink yourself silly - it’s not fun watching your father drink himself silly and pee wherever he likes.

That’s all that’s there. I wonder how many dates he has been on?

‘Fuck!’ My eyes catch the time and I realised I start work in 5 minutes! I quickly grab everything and get out. Getting half way to the door of work when I realise I need to lock my car, I quickly spin, dig into my pocket and press the button. Do not want the kids of the neighbourhood getting into my car! No thanks.

My boss is not going to believe what I am gonging to say to her. Should I tell her? She’d want to know. I rush through signing myself in, and walk straight to my bosses door. She looks up as I enter, smiles and says morning.

I smile at her in return ‘Guess what?’ ‘What?’ ‘Mum, I found dad on my dating app!’

Party games never end well…

And sometimes you have to get creative when coming up with what you do.

Cameron had a game he really wanted to try, and when I tell you nobody protested, I mean it.

Now, this is why you don’t leave 16 year olds unsupervised.

“Wait! Yo! I have the best idea ever! How about we all get dating apps, like ligit profiles, and we all swipe left on the first 4 people to show up no matter what and who they are.”

“Not going to lie, that is extremely lame.” Tara rolled her eyes and cuddled up againts the boy of the night.

“Shut it Tara you didnt let me finish. The fifth person to pop up, you have to swipe right and send a message that is unbelievably flirty. And whoever gets the best person get five dollars from every single person at this party.”

Alot of “im down”s echod through the room.

It took about 20 minutes to get everyone set up.

“Sarah! Your dad is on here!”

“What?!”

She snatched the phone and looked at it for a solid two minutes before going into the bathroom, calling her dad, and screaming could be heard trough the door. The worst they did was giggle a little.

Cameron went silent.

A girl with dark curly looked over onto his screen when she noticed that cameron wasn’t talking as he normally did. She immediately burst into laughter. She fell off of the couch trying to hold onto something. The tears where already rolling down her cheeks and her laughter practically silent with the loss of breath. Every one immediately swarmed Cam and statched his phone and they all had similar reactions.

“Are you going to swipe right or am I Cam-bam?”

“No man thats not funny. I dont wanna play anymore.” He tried to grab the phone back.

“Too late bro.” He swiped right and looked at his profile, “No freaking way. He is online. Oh my god he is going to love this.”

Sarah came out of the bathroom obviously angry, but she smiled when she saw who was on the screen, “I thought he had a wife.”

“Dont forget about the three kids!” A few people where still doubled over.

“If I could rewrite history,” he said slowly as he typed, “Id make sure you and I always end up together.”

“You have absolutely no rizz Jameson”

“Okay Tara” he said mockingly, “do you have any thing better? Exactly so shut it. And i already sent it”

Cameron looked like he was going to throw up.

“HE IS TEXTING BACK!”

Cameron grabbed the phoen back and read his response out loud, “Nice of you to reach out Cameron, I have always felt like we had a connection. Maybe you could stay after class on Thursday so we can get to know eachother? HUHH??” Cam ran to the trash can and emptied his stomach.

Jameson said, “So what we have learned, is that our history teacher is not only unfaithful, but also Zesty, and a child predator!”

“Okay but lets be honest, we already knew about his Zesty side…”

Cam finally recovered, “what do I do! My life is ruined! I cannot go to school tomorrow!”

“Good luck bro! I dont know how to help you dude!”

Lets just say, he got fired.

But Cameron proudly walked out of that party with a solid 95 dollars.

———🤍——— Writers Notes at the VERY bottom of the comments! I I I V

As I am laying on the couch, my older sister Ashley is cooking something in the kitchen. I can smell the toast being made on the toaster and the fresh small of avocados. Ashley turns to me and requests “Did you download Tinder yet?” I take out my phone and nod as I playfully go through it “Yes like you told me before.” From the corner of my brown eyes, I can smell her lavender scented perfume from behind me.

She takes a peep and instructs “Now sign up for it sis.” I turn to her retorting “I’m literally in the process of this Ashley.” I immediately put the username and finished signing up on the Tinder app. I immediately turn to her announcing “Your younger sister just signed up for Tinder.” Then she goes quickly behind me and watches me as she eats her avocado toast “Start looking Jazmin.” 

I groan in frustration “Ashley the love of my life…It’s not going to happen immediately on Tinder!” Ashley replies to me “You know how many couples that found each other on Tinder…you never know Jazmin…so please take a look at the profiles.” As soon as she says that to me, I start to think to myself about her advice and you know what? She could be right. So I immediately started to look through the Tinder app through the male profiles. 

As I’m looking through the male profiles on the Tinder app with my older sister Ashley watching right behind me, immediately I come across a male profile picture which is interestingly attractive as Ashley comments “Woah he’s totally gorgeous and he’s totally your type.” I start to blush as I see his profile picture with him wearing a mask and a black balaclava with a muscular body hidden underneath a black shirt and blue jeans. She whispers “You should totally swipe and message him.”  I took her advice and started to swipe but I turn to her “I’m going to wait until he  dms me first.” Immediately I received a message from the mysterious masked man. 

The mysterious masked man immediately asks “Hello love, how are you?” And immediately the romance and flirtation begins between the two people in Jazmin and the mysterious masked man. Eventually after the messages and flirtations on, they both agreed to meet each other in person at a bar for the first time. Inside of a lively bar, Jazmin is sitting at a bar awaiting for the mysterious masked man that she had met on Tinder until the bartender puts a shot of whiskey to her which she raises her eyebrow as she says “I didn’t order this.” The bartender points out to a blonde haired man whose is mostly wearing black slacks and black pants and all who was also close to her “He ordered it for you sweetheart.” 

And it all clicks from that point from her brown eyes…that handsome blonde haired masked man is the one Jamin had been talking to the beginning. Her cheeks start to blush as she looks at the handsome blonde haired masked man “so you brought that drink for me and nice to meet you.” Then out of no where he pulls her close to his strong muscled chest as he introduces himself to her “I did…and names Simon Riley…nice to finally meet you Jazmin.”

It doesn’t take me long to find his profile. At the Brew, Sarah hinted that Toby was looking, but I really didn’t think it would be this easy. The photo is old. He’s wearing a red flannel and fresh hiking boots. Everything about him looks new. Nothing like the Toby I know.

Ah yes, the most infamous place for hookups and flings alike.

Tinder.

At first- and I mean it- at first it was a joke. A silly, harmless joke.

Such a harmless joke turned into a shaking reality.

I am a introverted girl; I like my conversations short and sweet. Also without the public meetup as well- so why not shove all that into online friends?

Sure, you may get a 57 male posing as a 16 year old girl, but I mean, who hasn’t?

That shouldn’t even be In consideration, Poppy.

I sigh, rubbing my temples. I shouldn’t be trying this hard for a excuse.

Let’s face it, I’m lonely.

Extremely lonely.

So I created the account, thinking ‘ wow, I could make FRIENDS. Oh boy, I love making FRIENDS on a DATING APP’

( I really am desperate here )

To show my desperation, I swiped right- nearly all of them.

Not a single one has matched.

So, my predicament?

I sit on my phone, hiding in a closet at a party. My youngest sister, Ema, is hosting it. And since I’m the oldest currently placed here-

“ OI, stop your ogling on that couch, or ima get a dang spray bottle”

The teenagers both catch me staring. One gives a small smirk and goes in for another heavy kiss.

“ THATS IT.” Standing up, I stomp to the kitchen ( attempt to, there is way too many people present), grabbing the closest thing near me.

And that would be a dog bowl full of slobbered water.

I didn’t care what Ma would think- these teenagers were trying to get it on- on Great Grandma Helen’s couch that she gifted us.

With a quick pour, and sour screaming from both demons, they usher away into their corner.

“ Seriously, Poppy. I wish you would just act…normal…” Ema sighs, walking past the mess - that I was forced to make, no less.

“ Yea yea, Ema. Party ends in 5. I can’t keep up with all this hormonal nonsense going on in this house. It should be illegal.”

She gives me no protest as she stalks away down the hallway.

Just 5 more minutes of torture.

Just 5-

Oh who am I kidding, I’m going back to my safe zone.

I enter the closet, sitting and shutting the door behind me.

Only 3 more minutes.

So, I do the most rational thing any girl should do.

Scroll on Tinder.

For ‘friends’ of course.

After countless swipes upon swipes, my eyes rest on a particular profile. In the picture, a male holding a deer that, assumingely he shot. As I instinctively swiped right, immediately a notification popped on the top of the screen.

Matched.

Matched with this hunter dude?

This can’t be happening.

This whole time of swiping right on random people- I haven’t matched with a single person. And now- I have?

My heart rate instantly goes up, as the thoughts spew from my head. I have to talk to him. I have to interact possibly outside the comfort of my own home. This….

This is madness.

I tune out the party, as I stare at the profile of this dude. As I look into it more, I realize that most of his hobbies, actually intrigue me.

Aquarist, Botanist- is this person even real?

The more I read, the more I feel drawn.

‘ send a message’ a quiet voice in my head yells

And so, for once in my pathetic life- I did.

Screw possible consequences, weird social interactions.

This has to be fate.

I make no attempt to redirect the message as it sends, plastered on the screen.

I was tired of being lonely. I always thought that online dating was only for losers and desperate nerds, but I had nothin to lose so I decided that today was the day I would give it a try. I decided I wasn’t going to use the popular apps, like tinder or bumble cause I was worried that one of my classmates might see my profile and everyone would cyber bully me. My best friend Ralph got cyber bullied last year…..he didn’t make it. People at school found out that he played neopets and the teachers organized an assembly where they shot him and fed him to the special ed. kids and burned his house down and punched a hole right through his grandmas ass and spray painted the words “RAT FUCKER” on his driveway and rigged his moms van with a huge bomb and it blew up when his mom was driving with his grandma and stole his clothes and wore them. Anyways, I decided I was going to use the website “sloppypussymilfs.com”. I only had pictures of me taking a bath with my dad but they were better than nothing so I uploaded them. My carefully crafted bio said , “not looking for casual hookups, trying to have big babies. If you got a bush don’t even FUCKIN waste my time. I like it sloppy and I like cumming and I like SHITTING. If that’s too much for you then LOG OFF!”

It started slow and I was losing hope, these ladies had pussies way sloppier than I ever thought possible. Most of them looked like incense burning cat ladies and I was ready to give up. Finally I found someone that got my attention. This lady was gorgeous, her photo was her on boat with a fishing hook in her ass. She seemed familiar. I messaged her and said, “you seem like a cool chick, I like the asshole boat picture, you are juicy”. My mom began giggling and blushing while reading her phone on the couch. She replied “OMG u just made me laugh in front of my son!” I replied back, “I wouldn’t mind seein deeper into your asshole.” She replied back “ok one second”. My mom stood up on the kitchen table and dropped her pants and stuck her phone into her ass and took a photo, which kinda killed the mood but I ignored her. Moments later I received a real dirty sexy photo of the inside of an asshole. My dad was watchin a war documentary and didn’t notice any of this. This was for sure my mom. This was so wild, “meet me in the backyard for sex” I held my breathe and hit send. My mom sprinted into the backyard. I slowly tiptoed outside and approached her on the swing set. “MAMAAAA BABY NEEDS MILKY!” I screamed as I powerbombed her off the playhouse roof. Her tits had veins all over them and I knew that those veins had milk in them. “GET IN THE DOGHOUSE!” I demanded and she started barking wildly as I sprayed her eyes with the hose. She fell in front of my neighbours truck and got her hair stuck in the tire as he pulled out of his driveway. She slapped her clit and sucked her own tits as gravel sprayed all down the driveway.

Warning: some swear words appear in this story.

Well, this is awkward, I think to myself. I’ve spent the last half hour answering what felt like endless questions on the latest and greatest dating app. The ink is barely dry on my divorce papers, but I’m not getting any younger. That’s why I’m sitting her being grilled by an app.

What am I interested in? What activities do I enjoy? What was the last book I read? What is my favorite color? What is my least favorite color?

And so on and so forth. Then it moved on to deal breakers. Smoking is my biggest deal breaker. Well, I’ll take a smoker over an asshole any day. Been there, done that, never want to again. However, the algorithm didn’t ask me if I was an asshole, so I’m guessing it didn’t ask my prospective matches, either. Even if it did, would any of us admit to being an asshole? Most likely not.

And that brings me to my current awkward situation. After investing all this time and effort answering all these questions, I waited with baited breath to see my matches. The little clock turned. Does it take this long for everyone? I asked myself.

Finally my first match appeared. I was looking at the smiling face of my ex-husband. Apparently he wasn’t wasting any time getting back out there either. I toss my phone onto the couch beside me. They really need to figure out how to ask someone if they are an asshole.