The Magnolia Chronicles: Adventures in Modern Dating(6)

Magnolia: Thanks!

Dating App Guy 1: I want to suck on those big fat titties too.

Dating App Guy 1: Hello?

Dating App Guy 1: Sweetie? Where'd you go?

{ blocked }





*



The weekend rolled around but I forgot all about baking. It was probably a blessing in disguise since my sweet breads only rose about half of the time. That seemed like a fair statement on my ability to function as an adult too: fifty percent meeting expectations, fifty percent blobbing around like thick, doughy uselessness.

I was loaded with the best of intentions but getting off the ground required more than intentions. And ducks. It was always about having ducks and they needed to be in rows or lines. I didn't know who decided we needed waterfowl to reach maximum adulthood but I had no ducks, no lines.

But that was only fifty percent of my existence.

That was how I saw myself: part-time muddles and struggles, part-time working my ass off and getting through it like a boss. That was the catch though—I was only getting through. Yeah, I crossed the finish line but it was one helluva challenge getting there.

And today, getting through took the form of sleeping late, eating peanut butter straight from the jar for breakfast, and then walking in circles around the grocery store. I didn't know what to get, but instead of figuring it out I frequented the cheese sample station.

The sword swallower hadn't reached out since our dinner four nights ago and that was fine. I couldn't endure another dinner dental exam but his silence stung, just a bit.

I knew it was absurd to reject him with one hand and also hold out the other with the expectation of being chased. But that was my crazy view on the matter. I wanted to be wanted.

I wasn't sure when I'd collected that lofty attitude, since my entire romantic history resembled a highlight reel of dudes refusing me in sensational style. Even if we went back two solid decades to my freshman year of high school and my first "official" boyfriend, we'd find that pairing ended with him casually announcing he was dumping me because he'd discovered some other girl gave good hand jobs. And he liked hand jobs.

He hadn't given me a chance to show off my nonexistent handy j skills or even hinted at wanting one in the weeks we'd dated but that outrage was secondary. He'd already secured the services of another and determined I wouldn't—or couldn't—deliver. He hadn't wanted me.

All in all, that breakup hadn't dinged me as hard as the ones that followed. It'd wounded my pride and had shaken my confidence to the stump but it was a gentle preview of the road ahead.

Not unlike the bite of aged cheddar I sampled four times on my loop around the market. Each one ate a bit sharper, lingered longer.

And I kept going back for more. Choosing another cube as I smiled and thanked the clerk, and then wondering why I kept taking something that stuck on my tongue like a smoky, sweaty sock.

I didn't know what I was hoping to find by repeating this ritual with sword swallowers and immature hand-job enthusiasts and everyone in between. There was more to it than being wanted. But I didn't know what came after that.

I didn't know how it felt to be wanted and I didn't know how I'd handle it if I ever found out.





Chapter Three





Dating App Guy 2: Yummy.

Magnolia: …?

Guy Dating App Guy 2: You're delicious.

Magnolia: Thank you. I think…

Guy Dating App Guy 2: I'd eat your ass and cunt.

Guy Dating App Guy 2: Eat them like fuckin Thanksgiving.

{ blocked }





*



Dating App Guy 3: Hey what's up?

Magnolia: Not much. You?

Dating App Guy 3: Just chillin and trying to find a pretty lady.

Magnolia: Good luck with that.

Dating App Guy 3: Don't need luck. You're pretty and I found you.

Magnolia: There you go!

Dating App Guy 3: I have a boner.

Magnolia: Good luck with that too!

{ blocked }





*



Dating App Guy 4: Something about you just makes me think you'd give the world's best blow jobs.

Dating App Guy 4: If there was a contest for best head, you'd win.

Dating App Guy 4: You'd get the grand prize.

Magnolia: Yeah? What's the prize?

Dating App Guy 4: A pearl necklace.

{ blocked }





Chapter Four





My date was on his fourth cup of coffee in forty minutes.

It wasn't even iced coffee. That I could understand. Not that I'd ever chugged four cups, but I could knock back a large iced caramel macchiato under the right circumstances. But hot coffee? No, sir. It took me forty minutes and an ice cube to sip hot coffee.

But this guy was a devotee of the Church of House Blend Hot and Sweet. He'd scooped a handful of Splenda packets from the courtesy bin after the barista announced our orders. Not a few packets but an actual handful of them. He then proceeded to deposit them on the center of the table we chose on the Boylston Street side of the shop. I'd ignored the small mountain of fake sugar then but now it seemed he meant to consume the entire quantity.

That and a whole pot of coffee in under an hour.

This was what I got for agreeing to a morning coffee date. Not that first dates qualified as proper dates. They weren't. They were interviews. Some of those interviews were more promising than others and they called for better locations, spiffier clothes, prime time slots.