Online Dating

(The scene begins with two friends staring at a third man sitting off in the distance, alone.)

"What’s he trying to do? With a frown like that, either he’s pondering some deep, dark tragedy or he’s in desperate pain."

"No, I had a brief chat with him a while ago. He’s trying to come up with the perfect opening line for this online dating thing he’s got going."

"Ah, now that’s perfectly good reason for that furrow. Tell me, what category does he belong to?"

"Hmm? Category?"

"Well, in my vast experience, I’ve seen that there only a limited number of categories that Tinder opening lines, and by extension, the composers of said opening lines, belong to."

"First, there’s the poet."
"There was this time, when I was so moved by the sight of a bottle of Coke when I was thirsty that I penned this:"

An amalgam of soothing curves and startling edges you are,

Like the sharp aftertaste of a soft bottle of Coke.

Oh angel from heaven!

Have you been sent to quench the thirst in my eyes?

"Nice. Did it, er, get you somewhere?"

"I got a lolbye. Remarkable as that singularly constructed word was, it was like a tsunami dowsing the flames of my little backyard poetic fire."

"Then there’s the comedian."
"Especially the comedian who spends most of his time IRL not being funny and mostly being offended about the moral decay of the world, but thinks having an online persona that's diametrically opposite is a cinch."
"Also, by the way, this isn’t drawn from my bottomless well of knowledge, but suffice to say, I know someone who knows someone who may have said something like this."

A blind man, a rabbit and a monkey in a top hat walk into a bar. But I don’t know what happened next, because I saw you.

"Ha! That’s mildly amusing."

"Perhaps. But the response was, while completely deflating, possibly funnier."

So I’m a cop and you’re a drug peddler and you saw me and ran from that zoo bar?

"Haha, burnt toast. Now that I'm thinking about this categorization thing, wouldn't there be like millions of categories."

"Not at all. Patience, patience. Next up is Mr. Frankenstein."

"This category of people are frank and mon.. you get it."

I’m lonely tonight. Let’s make out? Oh, and hello.

"I’d think this would work. Props for honesty right?"

"Well, if your mother told you that honesty was the best policy, she was only referring to you lying about school report cards and throwing broccoli dinners down the toilet. This honest man, on the other hand, got no response, and in retrospect, that was probably the kindest thing that could have happened to him."

"The next category is what I call The Scientist."
"Men in this category carefully front load their first message to convey as much information as possible with the least verbiage. Everything from their hopes, dreams, fears, family background, great grand Uncle’s fourth profession, their previous, current and preferred religions, expired hobbies and wishful ones, expectations of their prospective partners, their thoughts on adoption, poverty in Madagascar, Love Island, everything's fair game."

"Not my style, but surely, information isn't a bad thing?"

(I must interrupt this free flowing dialogue to interject that our resident Love Guru is so gobsmacked by the previous statement that he spends a moment experimentally trying out this cool thing called flapping-the-jaw, while also trying this other cool thing called forming words. He eventually recovers and continues with his discourse.)

"Since the Gods of online dating tend to be fans of irony, walls of unparseable text such as these tend to be responded to with a single letter."

"K"

"That stings, man. I’ve actually had that happen to me IRL. Stings harder, except, since the woman I was talking wasn’t even listening, I could semi-self-hypnotize myself into believing some Zen woo that if the targeted listener in a dialogue didn’t actually listen, then the dialogue didn’t happen at all, did it?"

"I like your optimism. But anyway, that about wraps up this categorization business. There’s remains what I call a flavour because it can garnish every category: the Perseverer."

"Hey, remember that joke I told you two days ago about the blind man, the rabbit and the monkey in a top hat walking into a bar? Here’s another one, only it has a lion, a teacher and a drunk armadillo and it’s not in a bar but a broom closet, and it’s funnier."

"Hey, remember those two jokes I told you two and four days ago about an assortment of humans and animals walking into strange places?"


(Just as our protagonists are winding up their intellectual discussion, they notice something strange. Messr. Furrowed Brow in the corner is now standing up, ready to leave, freshly uncreased of the brow, and full-creased of the cheeks, and a toothy grin splitting his mug in two.)

"How well did you say you know that guy?"

"Er, well, I said sorry once when I accidentally spilt coffee on his new tennis shoes."

"That works man! Go, go, go! We need to know."

(The two of them scoot towards the departing man and cut him off unceremoniously. There's no preamble when this is said:)

"Hey-I-met-you-once-at-coffee. Did you have any luck with the online dating thing?"

"Yes! I am talking to this lovely woman."

(Looks of disbelief are promptly exchanged.)

"What did you say, man. What did you say?"

"Hello."