He steps farther into the room. “What are you working on? Stuff for your regular job, or freelance work?”
I quickly minimize the dating site window. How embarrassing! He totally just caught me on a singles site, and I’m doing it right after having pizza with him. Will he think that he inspired this activity? I wish I were one of those turtles on Animal Planet. I’d pull my head into my shell and not come out until he was gone.
Unfortunately, I’m not a turtle and I have nowhere to go. “No. It’s neither of those things.” I want to roll my eyes up into my head at how stupid I am. I totally could’ve just lied and thrown him off the scent, and he would’ve left me alone. Now I see the light in his eyes that tells me he’s not going to just let this go.
“Why are you so embarrassed?”
I breathe out a long sigh of defeat. He’s smiling. Does he know how powerful that dimple is?
“Okay, fine. If you must know, I was on a dating website.” I look away, tapping the shift key over and over again with my thumb to cover up my embarrassment.
“Cool. Can I read your profile?”
My jaw drops open. Is he serious? Does he honestly think this is some kind of spectator sport? That I want him to watch me wallow in my loneliness? “Uh, no. You can’t.” My face is so pink right now.
Undeterred, he grabs an extra chair and drags it over, placing it next to me. Turning it around, he straddles it and sits down, his arms resting on the top of the seat back. “Which site is it?”
I don’t say anything. I just open up the window and gesture at it.
“Oh, I’m on that one,” he says matter-of-factly.
“You are?”
“Yeah. Why? Does that sound so crazy to you?”
“I have no idea, actually. I guess I didn’t picture you as the type.”
He’s smiling, apparently enjoying my discomfort. “What’s the type?”
I try to smile but it comes out more like a grimace. “Desperate?”
He frowns at me, reminding me of a teacher I once had who was really good at scolding students with a mere furrowing of the brows. “If desperation is what brings people to dating sites, there are an awful lot of desperate people out there.”
“There are. Look at this.” I click on a few buttons to give him some statistics that are right there on the website for everyone to read. “Did you see this? They have over a million users.”
“Sure. That’s no surprise. There are a lot of single people out there. It’s a big world we live in.”
I turn to face him, even though he’s really close. “So, you don’t think it’s a desperate move to join a dating website?”
“No. No way. I think these sites are made up mostly of single people who don’t like going out to bars and who maybe have kids or jobs that keep them from going to parties and other places where they might meet single people. What else are they going to do? Go to the grocery store and scope people out in the produce department?”
I like the way he’s described the people who are on the site. People like me. Now I don’t feel quite as dorky as I did before. “It is really hard to meet people, especially when you have kids.”
“Tell me about it . . .” It seems like he has more to say on the subject, but then he just stops and looks away.
“So you’re on the site, huh?” A devious idea pops into my mind. I start clicking with the mouse.
He leans over. “No, no, no-no-no.” He tries to grab the mouse out of my hand, but I put my arm up to block him.
“Stay away. Nobody touches my mouse.”
“You’re not going onto my profile, are you?”
“Of course I am.” I can’t keep the smile out of my voice. “I want to see how you’ve described yourself.”
He’s laughing and moaning at the same time. “Oh, God, why would you do that to me?”
“Because. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do my profile. Maybe if I look at yours, it’ll inspire me.”
He laughs. “Other than both of us having kids, I cannot imagine that you’ll find any similarities between the two of us.”
I know he didn’t mean to be rude, but it makes me sad to hear him say that. I thought we were more compatible than that.
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“We do have the same sense of humor, though,” he says.
“Well, I think you’re funny.”
“Thanks.”
“Funny looking.” I giggle. This is a joke I learned from my children.
He puts his hand over his heart. “Oh, man, that was cold.”
I reach out and put my hand on his arm and pat it. “Just kidding.” I take my hand back and click on some more areas on the site. “Sorry, but my sense of humor is at third-grade level right now.”