Yes, and some guys notice me.

Over the next day or two, I put some work into my profile making it as appealing as possible, while remaining authentic to me. I removed the generic bio and changed it to read more realistically. I wasn't exactly a social hummingbird that Cassi had made me out to be. I loved staying in, watching movies, playing games and my new bio represented that. I added my hobbies, likes, dislikes and more until I had a more realistic example of what someone would be buying into if this were 'for real'... which of course, it wasn't…

This dating app was really cool though. When you search for matches, it seems to read very heavily into the information you put in about yourself and the more detailed—or truthful—the better results you get for people you may genuinely be interested in.

Sighing and feeling glum, I checked out some profiles on the app that matched with me—those people are called Clix. Since my profile's 'interests' were extremely detailed for the kind of guy I imagined I would like, the selection wasn't huge—I guess, apparently, I am picky. But every guy's profile that I saw was apparently my dream guy. There were like 7 guys I would happily cut my—very unimpressive—'man parts' off to be with. Stupidly, or courageously—depending on your optimism— I sent a heart to all seven guys and then slammed the laptop closed with guilt and terror. This whole dating app thing was really messing with my head.

The next day I had 3 messages on the app. A “Hey ‘winky face’,” from the graphic artist guy named Steven who was 25. A rather short but sweet opening from an—what I would call 'nerdy sexy'—IT guy named Mark who was a year older than me, and quite a long message from the third guy. The third guy—Jack—was 36! I couldn't even remember liking his profile but maybe I had and just didn't see how much older he was?

Jack had the dad bod look working for him _really _well. Just slightly overweight with glasses and a very neat beard that made me feel all kinds of ways—all good ways, FYI, judge me if you want. Jack was an artist for a toy or game company; it was hard to tell. And regardless of not being designed to impress, his bio was very much like mine, more truthful than he probably needed to be which was fairly average. No crazy 'I love hiking up mountains and run an animal rescue shelter' kind of stuff, just truthful things he liked, did not like and details about him as a person. All of which... I really liked. His message was by far the hardest to read—in that, it made my brain and heart decide to stop functioning.

It read: “Hey, Chloe. Your profile really floored me. The last thing I expected was to get a gorgeous young girl like you sending me a heart. Maybe it was a mistake... I hope it wasn't. We seem to share quite a bit in common, and it feels really weird to say, being so much older, but you are stunning. I hope I don't come off as too self-deprecating or **** because I’d really like to get to know you. Hope to hear from you soon. Jack.

Reading Jack's message made hitting the 'delete account' confirmation extremely hard. He was really sweet and seemed to be very interested in me even if he did come off as a little insecure, but then who was I to talk? My head was spinning and threatening a 'spiralling depression' kind of afternoon. I closed the laptop and screamed into my pillow ‘Why the fuck did I have to be cursed from birth with a fucking dick between my legs’

I cried that afternoon and wallowed in my own self-pity for the next day.

That brings us up to date and to today, a week later when I woke up to a few notifications on my phone.