JB: You get just okay grades because you’re too social, but…you don’t really care. Do you?

Wait—is he spying on me? How would he know a thing like that?

Me: You can tell all that just from looking at my pictures?

JB: Those observations weren’t insults; they were compliments.

Me: Stop. Can we please quickly acknowledge your proper use of a semicolon in your last message?

JB: Good thing or a bad thing?

Me: If I’m being honest, I’m a sucker for good grammar. What are you a sucker for?

JB: Now that’s a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one…

Me: **eye roll**

JB: I don’t know—I don’t think I’ve taken the time to figure it out yet. It seems like all I do is go to practice, eat, sleep, and study.

Me: Same, minus the practice part. What is it you’re practicing for?

JB: Don’t stalk me or anything, but I’m on the wrestling team.

Me: Here?

JB: Yes, here, LOL—where else would I be?

Me: I haven’t met any wrestlers on this campus yet. Football players, yes. Wrestlers, no.

JB: Jock chasers love it, the rest of them hate it. It’s not easy dating an athlete.

JB: It’s probably not easy being on a date with one, either.

Me: Why wouldn’t it be easy being on a date with one??

JB: If someone recognizes us, they want to talk, and suddenly we’re being interrupted, which ruins the mood. Trust me.

Me: You have lots of experience with that?

JB: Enough to know it sucks.

Me: I have NO experience with that, so…I’m a nobody, haha.

JB: Oh god, don’t say HAHA.

Me: Why? Pet peeve of yours?

JB: Sort of. There was this girl on here—the app, I mean—and she used it four times within two messages. It was so obnoxious, I thought for sure that was how she was going to talk in person.

Me: So she annoyed you but you went out with her.

There’s another pause in our conversation.

JB: Yes.

Me: Ahhh. So, you’re not really all that discriminating. Good to know. I can let myself go and you’d give me a free pass as long as you thought you might score some action. Is that it?

JB: Haha, very funny.

Me: But am I kind of right? Be honest: you have nothing to lose. There is always the next swipe if I don’t like your answer and you don’t like mine, LOL

Hell, he’s probably having three other conversations right now at the same time he’s speaking to me.

JB: I like how you switched it up and went with LOL instead of HAHA. Very smooth… But to answer your question, no, I’m not here to score some action. Action is NICE but not the point of all this.

Me: So you ARE looking for something serious?

JB: If it’s out there, yes. But I’m not going to force it either. Don’t you agree?

Me: Yes. But I’m also not going to make out or have sex with some guy I’ve chatted with for a few hours and met for a drink then never have him contact me again. No thanks, not into it.

JB: So what you’re saying is: you have standards.

Me: Some, LOL

JB: I have a few, but most of them are questionable, LOL

I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not, but it makes me laugh anyway, to the point where I’m giggling out loud with a hand covering my mouth.

Me: I’m not even going to ask what those questionable standards are. I’m too scared. I actually don’t get out much.

JB: Somehow I doubt that.

Me: Are you basing that on my pictures again?

JB: Yes. You’re way too cute to be sitting home.

Me: Cute. See, that right there is the problem. At the risk of getting too personal on a dating app, I’ll tell you a little TMI: I’ve always been cute—never hot, or whatever. Girl-next-door cute. For some reason, that’s always bothered me.

JB: Trust me, hot is overrated. And did I say cute? I meant pretty.

Me: Please don’t think I’m whining or whatever. I’m not insecure, but sometimes that word just makes me cringe.

JB: That’s another thing that drives me crazy about being an athlete. Girls think they have to meet some unrealistic criteria if they’re dating one. Like they have to be Miss America or something. And instead of acting normal, we get all these fake airheads pretending to give a shit about us when in reality it’s only to project an image they think we want.

Me: So you’re saying that’s not what athletes want? Hot girlfriends?

JB: I mean…fine. Some of them do.

Me: But you’re not one of them?

JB: I’d rather have someone who gave a shit about me at the end of the day, because this wrestling thing isn’t turning into a career. I’ll probably work in some bullshit office in a suit and tie after I graduate, God willing I’m able to actually get a fucking job.

JB: Shit. Pardon my French.

His apology makes me laugh, because obviously he could have deleted the curse word before he sent the message.

Me: What’s your major?

JB: Business.

How cliché.

JB: What’s yours?

Me: Business with an emphasis on advertising/marketing. I’ve known that’s what I want to do since I was in middle school. Before that, I wanted to be an archaeologist, but then I realized you have to be good at math and science, and I suck at both. No dinosaur carbon dating for me **crying emoji**

Me: Is yours just general business, or do you have something specific you want to do?

JB: My plan is to work for my dad.

He doesn’t expand on that, so I prod him.

Me: Doing what exactly?

JB: Financial planning and investments.

Me: So what you’re saying is, you’re good at math, and probably science too.

JB: I get by okay, LOL. I’m not a tutor or anything.

Me: But you could be?

JB: Incidentally, my roommate is actually a math tutor.

Me: Is he a wrestler, too?

Abe

I wonder how much to tell her about me. I mean, I’m supposed to be pretending to be JB, not giving her the dirt on myself. I’ve never done that before, given personal details that weren’t about my roommate.

And now I am.

What is it about this girl that has me breaking my own rules?

Rule 1: Don’t get personal. This is not your account.

Rule 2: Do not get personal. This is not your account.

Rule 3: Start the conversation, but don’t get invested.

Rule 4: These girls come and go like yesterday’s practice routine. Don’t get attached to any of them. They are not for you.

Rule 5: See all of the above. Repeat.

Once JB takes this Blue Sky girl out on a date, he’ll never speak to her again, so what good would it do me to continue having this in-depth conversation with her? She’s only going to get dumped after he realizes she’s not going to sleep with him.

No. She’s going to want to get to know him first, and he’ll never put in the time required for a girl like her.

She’s a keeper; I can already tell.

My heart pounds in my chest when I stare down at her last message, the yellow conversation bubble mocking me.

Suddenly I feel like a fucking idiot, speaking about myself in the third person, although she has no idea that’s what’s happening here, no idea I’m pretending to be someone else.