Member-only story
Dating Apps
How I met Rafael and Leonardo
I have never liked dating apps. I never will. I have experienced enough trauma to know that I can’t keep doing it to myself.
The night I met Rafael was one of those traumatic times. For some reason, I was still awake at four in the morning, on my phone.
As I browsed Bumble, I paused on a young gentleman. In his main profile pic, he was blowing smoke into the camera lens, his long hair brushed back with a head scarf.
“Rafael. 27.”
Then under that he had written: “Actually I’m 20, lol.”
I ignored the sketchiness and kept reading. In his bio, he wrote: “I’m down to Netflix and chill. Just looking for my stoner princess.”
I have to admit, that last part hooked me. I just wanted to chill too…and be someone’s stoner princess.
“You’re hot,” he wrote. “Wanna hang?”
I checked the time.
“It’s very late,” I said. “How about we do this during the day sometime?”
He was emphatic.
“No, we can’t do it any other time, it has to be tonight.”
At first, his forcefulness was off-putting, but then I did a double take. His persistence was actually sexy. I told him to come over.
