Perfect Match

An excerpt of my latest short piece…

Ruby placed her pen down and looked at her notepad with a satisfied smile. She sighed, contently, her list, or non-negotiables was complete.

It wasn’t all about visuals. Aesthetically pleasing was most definitely a welcome bonus, but it wasn’t the be all and end all. She wasn’t that shallow, she thought to herself, letting out a childlike giggle. The non-negotiables had a purpose though, and she certainly wouldn’t lose sight of that.

Now to create her log in, her golden ticket Charlie and the Chocolate Factory entry to the dating world. For years, before she defined her strategy, Ruby would go on nights out with the girls and encounter all manner of diabolical interactions with the male species. Drunken leeches would try to paw her, saying what they would like to do to her in her ear as the scent of lager and stale cigarette smoke clung to them like sand on wet skin. It made her sick.

Men, clearly out of her league who would assume that they transformed into Zac Efron or the more mature Gerard Butler when in fact, Ruby saw a strong resemblance to Jabba the Hut. She almost admired the magic mirror they looked into. Men offering to buy a cheap mixer drink in return for what they thought would be a night of wild passion.

Expectations, assumptions. Distorted reality, the beer goggles or simple delusion. It disgusted her. The vile, insulting, stomach churning advances when she was vulnerable for affection and love. Equally as frustrating was the disappointment of meeting a man on a night out who did have potential, only to be ignored the next day or to discover the hidden, existing girlfriend. She was done with incorporating drinking with the quest to uncover a potential suitor and had developed a zero tolerance attitude to the bullshit radiating from some men. That approach would never lead to the happy ever after she now sought. Her new agenda and the happy ever after that had become fixated in her mind, her ultimate craving. She knew now, with the help of the internet, she could absolutely execute her plan.

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