Monday 18 May 2015

Monday Morning Meh

 For audio click here

There was a dull pain at the front of Mitch’s head, the legacy of drinking more of the bottle of wine than he’d planned to last night. By more of he meant all of, and he’d always known he’d drink the lot so why was he kidding himself that he’d only planned to drink half of it. The train was crowded, Mitch longed to sit down but that was never going to happen. Those people who had seats had buried their heads in their phones avoiding contact with the outside world, just in case someone infirm or elderly needed their seat. Mitch was neither, he was just tired and a bit fragile and a bit well meh but everyone was probably feeling a bit Monday morning meh and people didn’t usually stand up for meh sufferers.
So Mitch clung on to the strap that a million other commuters had handled over the years and stooped over those who were seated below him. He could see their screens, one was reading Wuthering Heights, one the Telegraph, somebody was playing Angry Birds really badly but the rather beautiful woman in front of him was idly swiping her way through Tinder.
He smiled, he was on Tinder, fat load of use it did him. The idea was you swiped right if you liked the face and left if you didn’t. When someone who you'd liked, liked you back, you were connected. But the only people Mitch seemed to get connected to were SpamBots who sent him links to naughty websites and real girls who unmatched him just as soon as he sent them a message. So he’d given up and resigned himself to a life of never meeting anyone new.
But it was fun watching this girl play, even in his hungover state he was beginning to be able to guess what she’d do before she did it. She was a bit shallow to be honest; going for the perfect faces instead of the interesting ones. Mind you, calling a Tinder user shallow is a bit like calling a politician a self-interested bigot. The whole point of Tinder is that you judge people on how they look.
Mitch looked at the girl who was ‘playing’. He would certainly swipe right if she came up on his screen; maybe she had already. She was a stunning girl, all cheekbones and lips. Mitch returned his attention to the screen, not like, like, like, like, not like, not like, he was doing well at guessing. Maybe he could become her Tinder manager if she didn’t have time to play.
But then he saw his own face. Her finger hovered. Was that a good sign? He knew he wasn’t a One Direction lookalikee but he had a certain charm. Her mind clunked and whirred, she’d not discarding him immediately like she had so many others, but would she let him through to the next round or would she send him home. Mitch was saying like, like, like, like over and over in his mind willing her to like him. How good would he feel all day knowing he’d been liked by this beautiful girl. Her thumb twitched, she’d made up her mind. The girl obviously wasn’t tuned into his wavelength. She swiped left condemning Mitch to obscurity.
‘Bitch’ he said. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud  but he had, he immediately blushed. The girl looked up from her phone at the slightly hung over man staring at her. It took her a moment to realise that she was looking at a complete stranger that she had just rejected.
‘Sorry,’ she said, with a shrug 'just not my type,'   and turned her attention back to the phone.


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