LITMIR.BIZ

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I did something I’ve never done before and I’ve never done since – I looked on his phone. I felt sick with myself for looking but that’s nothing compared with how I felt when I looked through his apps and saw Matcher. Still willing to give David the benefit of the doubt, I considered whether or not this might just be curiosity and, with my heart banging hard against my chest, I ventured inside the app. Once in there, I got lost, drowning in a sea of matches and messages from more girls than I probably have in my phone contacts. I still felt like I was reaching, looking for something to grab onto to save me, but all I was seeing was conversations my boyfriend was having with single girls, telling them how he’d been single for a while, how he’d never met any girl that was worth the effort, how he’d love to go on a date with some red-headed girl, a veterinary nurse, some chick over from Australia on holiday for two weeks, a bird looking for ‘no strings’ fun, a single mum all the way in Doncaster – my boyfriend was putting out all kinds of bait and reeling in any fish he could get his hook into.

      I locked his phone, placed it down next to him and climbed back into bed. I woke up and gave him a handful of opportunities to come clean, but he didn’t. It was lie after lie. Even though it was 3am, I packed up my things and I left, because without trust, what’s the point?

      David was my first, proper grown-up relationship, and I thought we were going to be together forever. We were together just over a year, but we got so serious so quickly, we’d be talking about moving in together. Getting a place with David in Leeds was all I wanted. When the shit hit the fan, I thought to myself: who says I need a man to move out of my parents’ place and into the city? That’s probably why I was so quick to move in with Nick, despite not knowing him all that well. He was a means to getting what I wanted, even though it turned out that I did need a man to move out: Nick. I probably would’ve been happier living with my lying, cheating bastard of an ex.

      One of the things I’ve learned about Matcher is that it makes people greedy. Because you can’t just chat to one person, you wind up chatting to a whole bunch of different people. Say you pick just one to go on a date with and wind up having a blast – you don’t think maybe something could go somewhere with this person, you realise just how easy it is to get more dates. Why date one person when you can feasibly date at least four people a week? It’s horrible really. But that’s the world we’re living in now..

      When I first started using Matcher I was very cautious about who I spoke to and I certainly didn’t plan on meeting up with anyone. I knew that Millsy was never off it, and that it allowed him a different girl to sleep with every night, but I didn’t fancy it for myself. ‘Single AF’ as Millsy described me, because the bulk of his vocabulary is internet slang these days, he told me to sign up ‘for the banter’ last year, so I did, and I was surprised when I got talking to one dude who seemed pretty cool called Jack. I chatted with him for two months before I met him – which is ages in online dating world. He had his own place in the centre, he was gorgeous and he seemed really kind and funny – until I met him. Well, when Jack turned up, he looked nothing like his photos at all. He was significantly bigger than he appeared in his pictures, and shorter that I imagined too which didn’t help. He wore these little rimless glasses which – and I feel bad for thinking this at the time – made him look a bit like someone you’d expect to find on the sex offenders register, but I can honestly say that I didn’t care, because he was nice, and sweet and kind and funny – except he wasn’t. He didn’t just look different in person, he acted it too. Our chats were friendly and flirtatious, but we’d never really got onto the subject of getting it on, which is why I was surprised when – fifteen minutes into our date – Jack pinned me up against a wall and kissed me like a porno director had just shouted ‘action’. And right in the city centre, on a Tuesday lunchtime too. I wiggled free of his grasp awkwardly, steering him into the nearest shop in an attempt to halt his horses a little. I thought I was being a bit of a prude – which is unlike me – but Jack only got worse. He was like a horny teenager that had been granted unlimited access to boobs for the first time – except he hadn’t. When he wasn’t grabbing me, he was going behind me to try and unzip my dress. I let this go on for fifty minutes – forty-nine minutes longer than this excuse of a date should’ve lasted. Needless to say, this knocked my Matcher confidence and it took me nine months before I even dared to meet anyone again, but I did, and I have continued to meet fellas since, but no one has ever dazzled me. Everyone has been weird or, worse, boring. It’s full of vapid, topknot wankers who bang on about ‘cheeky Nando’s’ and how much they lift at the gym, and are on a one-man quest to shag as many birds as possible by any means necessary – people like Millsy, but he’s OK, because he might be a topknot wanker, but he’s my topknot wanker.

      These days, I don’t really give meeting up with dudes a second thought, and I’d rather do it sooner than later, get it out of the way, see if they’re weird or boring and then move on to the next one if they are. I breeze through it like it’s dull, mindless admin work. This one is no good, on to the next. Unlike Millsy, I’m not sleeping with my dates – I rarely find Matcher dudes tolerable enough to sleep with. Millsy teases me and says I’m weird, but I just can’t fancy someone if I think they’re a bit of a dickhead, no matter how hot they are. This is why Millsy tells me I’m ‘doing Matcher wrong’ because I’m not ‘making the most of the D’.

      So, back to Deano. It sounds strange, but I’m instantly more trusting of ‘known’ people because I feel like they have too much to lose to rape and murder birds they meet on Matcher. Another reason Deano seemed safe was because Millsy could vouch for him – well, the opposite of vouch for him, it turns out. When Millsy was a teenager he had a choice, he could pursue rugby or acting and he chose acting, much to his dad’s disappointment – and his own, to be honest, because he’s really struggled to find work, that’s why he’s so psyched about this Macbeth gig. In an attempt to sort of feel like he was acting and still be a part of the team his dad so wanted him to play for, Millsy took on the job of team mascot, which basically means he dresses in a big, stupid lion costume and roars on the side-lines during games. I often remind him that this particular job neither counts as acting nor being a sportsman, and I think he did feel a little daft to start with until he realised he’d get all the chicks that the real players didn’t want, so he’s quite happy with it now. Millsy has lots of silly little jobs, it’s surprising he’s found time to sleep with the entire female population of Leeds.

      When I found out Deano played for the Lions the first thing I did was ask my lion what he was like.

      ‘He’s a monumental bellend,’ Millsy told me.

      ‘So are you,’ I reminded him playfully.

      ‘He just fucks his way through Matcher.’

      ‘Again – are you talking about you or him?’ I laughed.

      ‘I’m serious, Rubes, most of the team have Matcher and we just use it to plough through girls.’

      ‘You say “we” like you’re one of the team and not the glorified stuffed animal who twerks to “Sexy and I Know It” at halftime,’ I persisted with my teasing, unwilling to take his advice.

      ‘Fine, go out with him, but he isn’t your type. You heard it here first: Ruby wouldn’t.’

      So here I am, with Deano the hooker, and I have to say he scrubs up well. He’s wearing black trousers with a black shirt that his muscles look fit to burst out of. He’s clean-shaven, something that seems to be a rarity amongst the menfolk of Leeds these days, and his short blond hair is perfectly messy.

      A waiter shows us to a quiet corner of Vici, an Italian restaurant. Deano’s choice and one that scores him major brownie points (or tries, if we’re sticking with the rugby theme) because I love Italian food.

      It’s such a romantic setting, with its rustic feel, twinkling fairy lights and soft music – the perfect environment for a date.

      ‘So have you had a good day?’ I ask, making small talk as we wait for our food. I don’t know what it is, but the conversation feels forced and difficult. Deano is quiet, but in a strange way. He’s clearly not shy, he just seems to have nothing to say.

      ‘Good,

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