A Lonely Virgin and a Task-Tracking App

John sighed. He had just finished the most comprehensive and ambitious personal project he'd ever attempted. So why did he feel so depressed?

That was a trick question and he knew it. He was depressed because he couldn't seem to maintain any friendships, and the friends that he did have were surface-level at best.

Even though he just finished something he was super proud of, he had nobody to celebrate it with. Like always. It's not like the views were anything to write home about either, barely managing to crack 200 on YouTube within the first week. Other people had millions of views and didn't even stack up to what he had accomplished. It wasn't him being arrogant, or having an ego. Quite the opposite was true; nothing he ever created or put into the world felt worthy of any type of notice or praise. Which was why something he was genuinely proud of hurt so bad to get almost no attention.

But that was the story of his life. No matter how hard he tried, he seemed to be destined for mediocrity. The song "Mr. Cellophane" from the musical "Chicago" would occasionally saunter through his depression-addled brain.

Idly, he scrolled Snapchat to see if his crush had checked the story announcing his video's completion. Her response to the rough draft being completed was much more tepid than he'd been hoping for. Then again, just about everyone's reaction had been "ah that's nice" with few more words to spare even regarding the finished project. John sighed again. Jane was amazing, and cosmically beyond his reach. A certified 10, but emotionally distant and hiding behind a veil of mysticism instead of facing her problems head-on. He had been emotionally bracing for weeks now for the halcyon days to come to an end.

He had met Jane through one of various dating apps. Honestly the first woman he'd had any conversation with that wasn't a friend's girlfriend. He was shocked when he had gotten the notification that she liked him back. After about a week of some cute back and forth that filled John's heart with the warm fuzzies, they agreed to meet up. As a 34 year old virgin, John was absolutely terrified that his dick was going to tear a hole in his pants at some point in the date.

A self-described "bad bitch from Texas," her dark complexion, beautiful dreads, and massive breasts had hypnotized John from the moment he'd swiped "yes" on her profile in spite of a few red flags. "I could use a few red flags in my life" was his thought at the time. Upon meeting her, he surprised even himself by having a rather pleasant conversation throughout, chatting about anime, games, pretty much every thing he could have hoped for in a first date. He'd always been scared that he would turn into a ball of nerves and freeze up.

He found out she'd been a Wingers girl (somewhere between a Buffalo Wild Wings and a strip club, but with more lighting). Jane mentioned she'd done it to increase her confidence, and mentioned how much fun she had while doing it. He admired her for doing it. Honestly John had a lot of admiration for sex-positive people from all walks of life as long as they weren't leaving a trail of destitute children in their wake.

They chatted, then found a quiet local park to smoke a blunt. This was the first time he faltered in their conversation, unable to think of any topics to bring up while they toured the park looking for a quiet corner where nobody would interrupt them. Soon after he would blame himself for this silence, but the reality was that Jane was growing bored of him but didn't want him to cause a scene before dropping her off at home. After he finished rolling, and they started smoking, she steered the conversation toward meeting intentions. John admitted that he was looking for something romantic, because in his eyes he couldn't just ask for sex. He was honestly interested in her for far more than something as basic as that. As much agony as every day past 18 through 34+ as a virgin caused him. Sex would be nice, but have you ever had someone to cuddle with, or even spare an idle thought for you and check in on a random day? John hadn't.

Jane was quick to shut him down, citing her masters degree she was working on, and that she didn't have time for a romantic relationship but they could be friends. John's heart dropped; he'd heard that line before. He choked back a little emotion as they agreed to be friends and left the park to get Boba tea. She expressed wanting to get a group of friends together, as a recent transplant from a different state she didn't have many more friends than her roommates and an "AI best friend." John had to try hard not to scoff at the idea of an AI best friend. He had considered chatting with one of those bots when he was at the depths of his depression, but having CompSci experience he knew exactly how fake it all was.

They had ended the meeting on amicable terms, continued talking and sharing memes.

That had been a few months before, and they had both attended an anime convention together in the time since.

Recently though, things had become a bit rocky.

Jane had constantly preached about mental health, and positive actions to improve oneself. How she wanted to be a healer and help people who were suffering. During their first meeting, she had invited John to a task-tracking app disguised as an RPG. Something to help you stay focused on stuff like 'do the dishes' etc. John was enamored, he was all about trying to improve yourself even if he didn't really feel the need to micromanage his days. But still he gave it a chance, if only for the sake of showing commitment. He was ultimately looking for a muse and isn't that would a muse would do?

"Welcome to the guild! We're all about helping each other and getting things taken care of. Let's all keep ourselves on course!" This meant that they did very little to keep each-other on track, and she would just post adages and self-help advice in the group chat. John felt awkward, it wasn't really his place to step up when one of the guild members were actively decimating the party with uncompleted tasks.

About a month prior to present, John and Jane made plans to go to the local beach. She told John that she'd never been to the world-famous pier, and John had always dreamed of taking a woman on a date there, even if it was a little far. The day before they had set to go, Jane went completely radio-silent. He grew worried, but moved on with his weekend. He didn't mind so much anyways, in the lead up to the beach date he'd been trying to push off a few extra pounds with exercise, and re-ignited an old back injury that left him in crippling pain.

When she responded again, she fed him a fake story about her boss sexually harassing her and docking her pay when she declined him. John believed it; after all why would she have a reason to lie about something as awful as that? After securing permission, he sent her a game to keep her mind off of it and gave her the space she requested.

Jane promptly sold it on eBay without even opening it. One of her friends wanted to have a girls day at the beach next weekend and there was no way she was going to go two weeks in a row. This would help pay for her bikini.

A few weeks of casual conversation later, Jane would post in the task-tracking app about it being an excellent month to tackle mental health, and inviting anyone who wanted to talk about any issues they have to discuss them.

In the depths of his despair and isolation, John alluded to some of his issues and asked for some of Jane's time to talk when she had some time and availability between her busy work/school schedule. He was going to try to talk about some of the things that plagued him that he needed to move forward from. Things that he could only move forward by talking about or taking action on. Stuff like his virginity, and how he just wanted to rip it up and toss the scraps off the nearest escort's balcony just to get it over with; but also wanted his first time to be with someone special. But he didn't want to make it out like that's all he cared about her. He also had a physical quality that long-since differentiated him from most men. Although he was very much a CIS straight male, he had rather large and obvious man-boobs, big enough that you could barely affix the word man to them if the body attached were just a little more feminine and far less hairy. A lifetime of shame had made him very good at disguising them, but with some of the things that Jane had told him about her being female but having "male energies", John thought maybe he had finally found someone who would accept him.

Before it could get to that, she pushed him away and referred him to therapy and meditation, in spite of expressing how much pain he was dealing with and how isolated he felt.

While John was sure he could use a little bit of therapy, it wasn't exactly like you can walk into therapy and say "hey I'm a chronically depressed virgin and I think the only cure is to get laid by a chick with massive gazongas can you help me?" He knew with laser accuracy the cause of his depression, but he didn't know how to move forward.

Which made his current predicament that much more heart-wrenching. He never even got a chance to get that far.

John's phone made an unfamiliar chime, and he received a notification that he had been kicked from Jane's RPG party. He was mildly devestated, but he'd been expecting it ever since she grew distant after the failed beach trip.

He sent one last message to Jane expressing how mean that was, and apologizing for wasting her time. After getting heavily drunk and seeing that she hadn't even so much as opened the message in the 12 hours since he sent it, he blocked her and resolved to move on with his life. He smoked another few bowls to the face, kicked back another few shots, and played games until he flopped into bed at 4am after calling out sick at work. It was rare that he called out so he could get away with a mental health break. John knew from experience that his body would soon be rejecting everything he'd down as it was already starting to protest.

As he laid on the bed, sleepless and wide-awake, he contemplated his current predicament. He was determined not to dwell on it, in spite of his sub-conscious conspiring against that intention. His mind strayed back to the task app, and he loaded it up one last time before uninstalling it. He had nobody to talk to about all this. His brother had the emotional intelligence of a brick wall when it came to providing any comfort, and none of his friends really talked to him that much these days.

Another unfamiliar chime played, and a popup appeared on his screen.

"You have been a good party member cursed with bad parties. Would you like a goddess's boon?"

With a bemused smirk, he tapped "yes" to see what useless trinket it gave him, finally ready to be free from daily check-ins.

The screen suddenly went "dark". John could tell it wasn't actually dark because the backlight was still on. Suddenly, 3D jewels started raining down from the top of his screen, piling up as a Crown appeared.

"KING MODE ACTIVE" appeared on the screen. "View Tutorial?" and the same Yes / No buttons. John tapped Yes, as the app displayed the promised tutorial.

"In this advanced mode, you are now able to set tasks for the people around you, and allocate stats as needed! Whether or not you're in a party, this premium mode provides access to any one of our regular users task lists! Set any task, no matter how big or small, and receive twice as much experience as they would gain for completing them. Remember -- no one questions the King! May you rule with divine benevolence!"

The app now looked completely different from how it was before. Where there had been 4 categories for Habits, To-Dos, etc, now the home screen was a status, with a pixel representation of his avatar clad in a crown and a cape. He noticed the health value wasn't maxed out, it was hovering at about 27%. 'How odd, usually you start these things with full hp.' He thought to himself. Checking the tabs along the bottom of the screen, he saw the 4th one which said "Shop." If this worked like the base game, this would have something like a potion he could use to heal.

The items certainly looked different, but sure enough there was a potion at the top of the list. He was happy to see his coffers were well stocked; the potion was barely a pittance compared to how many he had to dump into his HP before to survive the party member that had been actively murdering them.

The potion applied, and he saw his HP gradually raise to about 74%. His building nausea dissipated, but he didn't register any connection. His drunken mind more believing it to come and go in waves. No, the first sign that something was different was when he gingerly rolled on to his side to mitigate the majority of back pain he'd otherwise experience with such a "drastic" shift.

Except this time, he didn't feel even so much as a tendril of pain.

So constant had the pain been that even **** hadn't been able to take off the edge, at least as much as he could hold in. He was tempted to jump out of bed, but afraid he would reinjure himself like he had previously. He sat up, and casually swung his legs over the side of his bed then stood up straight. He noticed that the numbness at the back of his heel was gone, as he strode into the bathroom to get a look at his posture in the mirror.

Perfectly straight he marveled to himself, long since used to his reflection displaying his shoulders and hips at dissenting angles from each other. Carefully, he bent at the waist and touched his toes, then slowly rose back up. Not even a prickle of pain. He was halfway between dancing and crying, until his brain finally caught up with the implications. Before he had bought the potion, he had laid down specifically because his back was sore and he was tired of switching between sitting and standing at his desk.

Does that app have the ability to alter reality? Or did I finally crack? Maybe I'm asleep? I don't feel that drunk.

Of course John was familiar with the concept; he had grown so lonely that his mind had long since formulated any form of escape plan even in fantasy. Read his fair share of erotic fiction and comics where reality became warped toward the protagonist being given the powers to escape his ho-hum existence. He just didn't think he'd ever be so pathetic he'd qualify for them first-hand.

He glanced at the clock. If King Mode worked as it described, he wouldn't have very long to make the changes he needed. He quickly unblocked Jane.

Now to explore the app.