Signing up for my profile gave a weird fluttery feeling in the pits of my stomach; the feeling which got so intense when it was time to upload my picture that I closed the app before screaming into my pillow.

It's not like I had never dated before. I had quite some experience in that field. Thinking back to my high school days, my first love was this really cool guy with a great sense of humour, damaged personality, family issues and flirting issues — really cool. All the breakup songs and independent movies made so much sense to me when we finally called it off after around a year of on and off dating. That's when I experienced my first, true heartbreak. It took a long time for my feelings for him to be swayed away though.

When I was absolutely not ready to move on, my mother somehow managed to set me up with this guy who was at the top of our class and was on somewhat friendly terms with me. After a month of fighting with my mother, who wanted me to date the boy because I was on 'the verge of leading astray', I accepted defeat and gave into the relationship. But soon I realised I had some fluttery, unmentionable feelings for my bestfriend and he reciprocated. As much of an exaggerated melodrama this sounds like, it was real. It was chaos then but that's a story for different time.

It was high school and I was silly. But what good being older did? The stupidity remained. My dating past had definitely scarred me for a lifetime but I did not plan to remain single forever as well. So I picked up my phone again to start filling up all the details again and proceeded to take forever to choose a picture for the profile. By the time I was done, my confusion with the use of the app was overpowered by my urge to pee. In the quick second that I took to take a peek at the screen, I could see the image of a man in a white shirt with a quiff; the names and other details unreadable to me but a lop-sided goofy smile very prominent. Nature's call was very serious about not being late so I jumped off the edge of the bed, throwing my phone back but it looked like my clumsy finger had accidentally swiped the man to the left. Not really focused on that I rushed to the toilet.

I came back to bed with the pressure relieved from my bladder and exhaustion added to my eyes. But my eyes were stuck on something else. On the screen of my phone was probably the hottest man I had ever come across, in reality of course. His olive skin tone was gleaming in an aesthetic golden light. His sand brown hair was wavy and fell over his eyes which were framed perfectly behind the sexiest spectacles that I had ever seen. His posture was relaxed but he looked like a model off the runway with a dazzling smile and perfect teeth on display.

"Breathe, Cynthia."
I said to myself with a huff. My thumb anxiously hovered over the screen as I took in his details, reading it out loud.

"Ethan Dover. 24.
I need someone to fill in for Timbaland’s half of the 'Promiscuous' duet with Nelly Furtado. Trying to sing both by myself is getting really exhausting."

Mouthing a silent wow, my eyes ran over his image again. He looked the perfect mix of smart, funny and handsome even though all I could do was see one photo. After giving it a few minutes of thought, I finally did the deed and swiped right, immediately covering my eyes. A congratulatory tone reached my ears and I peeked from behind my fingers. To my surprise, on the screen it said:
"It's a match!"

–

"No no, I'm just about to go to shower. I still have a lot of time. Yeah, well he asked me to meet downtown so... I'm not sure. Of course, I'm excited. Ugh just don't bring that up, Zia. Yeah, Nana knows. I'm pretty sure she is listening through the door right now. Give me a second-"

Jumping out of my bed, I could hear the rushed footsteps moving down the corridor. I pushed open my unlocked door to catch a glimpse of a blur disappearing inside Nana's room. Shaking my head with a sigh, I went to her door and knocked on it.

"Oh come in, Thia."

I pushed open the door to see my Nana, breathing heavily but her posture was weird. She was on her bed, back against the headboard but it looked like she just stumbled on it. My detective eyes then caught sign of the final evidence. Her slippers were on her foot.

"You were listening through the door, weren't you?"
"What are you even talking about, Cynthia? You think your Nana has time to listen to your conversations with Zia through the door? What rubbish!"

Watching my eyes squint to slits in disbelief, she pulled the covers up to her chest. I decided it was time for the final flow.
"Nana, why are you wearing your slippers in bed?"

An audible groan was heard across the room before Nana threw away the covers.
"I thought it was your date! Then when I realised it was Zia, I was waiting to hear what you were going to wear. Because-"
She gave me a once over with the kind of face that mean girls in high school make,
"You've got terrible fashion sense!"

I eyed her neon blue sweater and yellow flower-print pants and smirked.
"Yeah, sure."

Walking out of her room I could hear her screaming,
"Did you just mock me? I'll tell you, young lady, I was the hottest girl in my class when I-"

Closing the door to my room, I breathed another sigh. The question was relevant. I had no idea what to wear. I thought of calling up Zia again but she had her classes. Standing in front of the wardrobe with clothes tumbling out of it, I realised that all those mocking laughter that I directed to people screaming they have nothing to wear with overflowing clothes, that was me now. I have officiated the meme. A brilliant idea lit up the messy insides of my head and I decided to evade the confusion a little and directly contact the cause of all this havoc.

I read the message out loud before sending just to be sure that the twists in my stomach hadn't messed up my brain,
"Hey Ethan, we're going casual tonight, right?"

Nodding, I pressed sent. While awaiting for a reply, I looked through my cupboard to find something cool and casual but stopped when I notice something something in the mirror. A very prominently red zit sat on my cheek, disgustingly poised. I couldn't help but wonder what clique I was in because this looked straight out of that miserable girl's life shown in soap-operas. Wondering if my on-the-verge-of-expiring concealor would cover it well, I took out my favourite casuals: my preferable jeans and a cool tshirt. It wasn't the best but it was something I felt rather confident in.

When the sun was on the very edge of visibility, I walked towards the decided spot downtown. Nana was very annoyed with my choice of dressing until I showed her the reply I got from Ethan minutes before leaving. It read a simple 'yea sure'. Nana was satisfied at that but my mind was in a itch. The response felt rushed, even though it was a text and just minutes before the decided time. My mind has always been in the gutter of overthinking but somehow I felt that he wasn't as anxious or excited for the date as I was. It could be nothing, yeah, but it could be something too.

When I first talked to Ethan, he wasn't too talkative but his response gave me 'hey I'm interested' vibes. His jokes were sappy but cool and our thoughts synced. I was too awkward to ask for many personal details but I learnt that he lived not too far away from downtown, noting how he didn't disclose the particular street. I did the same; gave him vague details. When we decided to meet up, I was glad that we came up with meeting downtown and not some shady dock with apparently beautiful sceneries. Years of poor dating experience made me think negative of his relatively casual response: that's what I thought as I neared the spot.

Bella's Eatery was as old as it gets. The crowd was less than what I anticipated for the weekend. After contemplating whether to wait outside or get a booth, I observed a happy girl who was praising her date, who was waiting for her arrival outside. I decided to do the same. The streets were busy with bright signs on almost every building. Muffled voices and random words floated to my head as a big group walked past and towards Darling's. The mouth-watering scent of fast-food reached my nose and that's exactly when it happened for the first time.

My stomach gave a lurch. Not the pre-date jitters, I-am-so-nervous lurch. It was the I-need-food-now lurch garnished with a groan on top. Sharply looking around to see if anyone heard it, I casually covered my stomach with my hands to muffle the sound of my gluttony stomach. For the first time, I was glad that people here were so annoyingly loud. I checked the time to realise it was already past the decided time. My stomach lurched again, this time a combination of nerves that were whispering that I was about to be stood up and of course, hunger. The amount of regret I was feeling for declining Nana's offer of a cupcake in rush was incomprehensible.

The butterflies in my stomach were turning to phirhanas and my date was nowhere to be seen. A large group exited the Eatery with loud laughter and indecipherable talks but my ears caught onto that one man's words:
"Ah, I come here for that cheese pull. Did you guys see that when the chicken tenders just dipped into the thick cheese? Gosh, I'm getting hungry again!"

The groan from my stomach was more severe and urgent. A woman looked oddly at me as she walked passed and I couldn't understand whether it was because she heard my stomach or was that stare full of pity at a girl standing alone in front of a eatery; either way it was embarassing. Suddenly becoming aware of the eyes on me as people came and went, I felt annoyance at Ethan. Who cared if it was our first meeting? He was going to get a earful of my embarassment, the root of which was solely he.

It was way late than the decided time when I finally strengthened my throbbing heart and stomach and decided to leave. I was clearly stood up. Eyeing the crowd one last time, I gripped the cover of my phone as tightly as I could without the intention of breaking it and turned away. I knew I was minutes away from shedding a tear by the pricking in the corner of my eyes. My dating experience just kept going downhill and nothing could change that, that was for sure. With an audible sigh, I started walking slowly back towards home. My stomach seemed to have gained sympathy on my heart and stopped the awkward calls. But as fate would have it, I wasn't out of the threshold of the Eatery when I heard my name from the muffled voices.

"Cynthia? Hey!"

My heart stopped for a beat then began beating at twice the normal speed. So I wasn't stood up; almost, yes, but not stood up. Letting out an exhale of relief, I turned around. A man was making his way through the group exiting the Eatery. His hair was in a quiff, his face in a blur but his white shirt and tall, slender physique was prominent. Ethan was definitely more stout in the picture but nobody looks the same as their photos.

But when he pushed his way through and stood in front of me with a sheepishly guilty  smile, I knew one thing for sure with wide eyes and weak knees.

"You-you are not-"

The man tried to interrupt my stuttering mess of a sentence with,
"I can explain!"

But all I could say was,

"Did I just get catfished?"

Preview of the next chapter:
"I'm hungry. Let's just eat. You pay."
"Uh? Okay, I guess? But-"
"Shut up, Catfish. You are annoying me."