AUTHOR's NOTE: The dialogue in this chapter of the story takes place via text, either through tinder or snapchat. A double backslash ("\\") indicates where one character 'double-texts'; that is, sends multiple messages in a row without waiting for the other person to respond.
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The notification slid down from the top of the screen while I was scrolling through tumblr in bed, lying on my stomach wearing a t-shirt and a pair of sapphire-blue briefs.
*You have a new match*
Nothing important. Not that I'm bragging but I do get quite a few matches when I'm using tinder. That's not to say that I'm necessarily
hot
or anything, it's just that when you're bisexual you're not limited to only one half of the tinder-using population. In fact, I would wager that queer men get the most matches, or at least, the most useful matches. Straight women probably get the most attention on tinder, but considering who's giving them that attention, they need to filter through a lot of it to get to the 5% of people who're actually a winning combination of kind, interesting and non-crusty. Most of my matches are men because the same hormones which drive straight men to dog women find themselves equally matched, and... well, it's very easy for queer men to find ourselves online, especially in a context which practically demands horniness.
Since I get matches all the time, any old random new match didn't mean all that much to me. But it was the evening, I'd done all my class reading, eaten dinner, and was just planning to dick around online before sleeping eventually. In fact, I was feeling a little bit horny so this could work actually.
Flirting with guys on tinder, getting them to give me attention, to tell me they wanted to fuck me or have me fuck them-- all this was a recently-discovered pleasure. Whom amongst us does not love attention? Sure, it is attention from men, which is stimulating but emotionally dry, in my experience. But I mean hell, it's a lot more interactive than watching porn. It's not even voyeuristic, so maybe there's a moral argument to be made there. With nothing better to do and feeling the need to release some steam, I went over to tinder.
Nikita was his name. I had swiped right on him a few days ago when I was, unfortunately, swiping right on every non-crusty guy I found given I was horny at the time. The few people I'd been chatting with that night all eventually stopped responded, leaving me high and dry, (metaphorically and not). Hopefully tonight would be different. I swiped through his pictures; mostly cute. He was wearing this black hat in them that all the Slavic exchange students wore. With a name like Nikita he must be Russian or something. Nikita Krushchev, right? Somewhere around there. Slavs are known, I thought, for their masculinity and sometimes overwhelmingly intense sexuality. Could be hot. His bio was typically bare.
He messaged me while I was looking through his profile.
"Hello!"
I swiped over to reply
"hey what's up?"
"Nothing much. You are from America, no?"
"yeah actually, i've been here for about two months \\ what about you?"
"I am from Russia. \\ Why are you in Freiburg?"
"studying german and english, you?"
"Computer Science. \\ I wanted to come to a more international city to study it since it requires knowledge of English."
"don't they teach English in Russia?"
"Yes, but the faculty at the University in my city are not very well-renowned. UniFreiburg is known in Europe for having a good faculty. \\ I also wanted to stay in a smaller town."
"why not go to england or america or somewhere where they speak English natively?"
"My country gives more money to study on the continent than off. And with Brexit and Trump, I did not want to take any risks. Things are strange enough politically in my country, especially for men like us."
"yeah I can imagine."
"You were at the party at the T.I.K last week, yes? \\ You were drinking all of those colored shots?"
"yeah, that was me. why, were you there?"
"I was. I saw you with your friends. You seemed very friendly and cute. I wanted to come and talk to you."
"oh my goodness, that's so sweet! why didn't you?"
"I was intimidated by your cuteness."
This struck me. I'm not used to attention; at least, not like this. Not starting with cute. I've had men call me cute before, but usually with qualifications, like 'I wanna cum all over that cute face' or 'I'm gonna fuck that cute ass so hard'. Not that that doesn't have appeal, but this felt different. He wasn't just some guy messaging me trying to get off (at least, not so far). He had actually seen me in person at a party, drinking with my friends. That was already much more than everyone else who I'd ever matched and sexted with on Tinder. And: he thought I was cute! He felt intimidated by my cuteness!! What's more, he lived in this city, not 50, 70, 100 km away like other matches. This had potential.
After thinking for a moment, I replied:
"well i can promise i'm not intimidating, lol \\ i wish you had come over and talked"
"So do I \\ But I am talking to you now on here, so hopefully this is just as good."
"i guess it'll have to do for now, lol \\ what do you think you would've said if you had approached me at the party?"
"I think I would have tried to begin flirting with you."
"oh really? how so?"
"I probably would have made a comment about how cute you seemed from across the yard."
"sounds like a decent start \\ i think i would've returned the compliment, you're quite pretty yourself <3"