Shot with (OK)Cupid's Arrow?

It's not very "cool" to admit, but I think the "Flo's Street Cred" boat has well and truly sailed into the ocean of "Dream On" now, right? So here it is: I'm a romantic. A senseless, foolish, weeping romantic. I am fucking tragic for a good love story. I'm the friend who goes doe eyed when you confess that there's somebody new in your life; your butterflies are contagious and I'll catch 'em as hard as you do. Every single time.

I'm an idiot for all of it; I use the term "idiot" because believe me, rarely does any good come from being this way. My life is essentially defined by this constant, furious struggle of keeping my heart in my chest, and not my sleeve.

This is why joining a dating website probably never occurred to me as something I should get into. I mean, can you think of any good love story in which the couple met via - the ghastliness of it... - some form of virtual medium? Christ, Romeo didn't "swipe right" to Juliet. Bridget Jones didn't get chatting to Mark Darcy on Tumblr one lonely, wine-filled evening. Peetah didn't favourite so many of Katniss' tweets that she finally confessed to Prim "I think the bread guy's quite keen"

But then one of my besties found the love of her life on OkCupid and let me tell you, my beautiful friend just glows, these days.

Anyway, her success made me reconsider my stance, since I currently have all the glowing potential of a blackboard and if anything, I quite like chatting to strangers. Plus, it's 2014; maybe Shakespeare would have been all over Tinder if he were still knocking about. Maybe it's what he would've wanted for me.

The process of creating my profile was a nightmare of course. At one dire point, the word "swazzy" was included in the first paragraph and I had confessed to having a massive crush on Woody Harrelson. But after an hour of fiddling over what kind of Flo I'd like to project to the online dating world, I can safely say I was hooked straight away.

I'll explain.

PROS:

• I can browse potential men pals whilst looking like this!!

Man killer xo

• The process of online dating is completely hassle free - no awkward chat if I don't want it, here. No need to doll up, no need for my friends to tell me he "doesn't seem into it - but don't worry! He's a proper dickhead anyway!" and no need to try and be anything but myself.
• And if they don't like "myself"? Block. Block away. On to the next one.
• One particularly cold evening, I spent half an hour in intense, passionate discussion with a bearded guy exclusively about the majesty of Matthew McConaughey - something I am always down for doing. 
• I have also enjoyed genuinely great, funny, interesting conversations with numerous guys - the kind when I look forward to opening their messages - but y'know...Matthew McConaughey.
• It's like having somebody hand my ego a hot chocolate whenever somebody "likes" me.
• My friends and I now regularly sit together in an orderly circle, browsing through the app and cackling away; so it's made us closer, too. Cute, I suppose.

CONS:

• You generally still go to bed after logging off with a notable lack of spooning partner.
• In a sense, being scouted to partake in group sex is somewhat flattering, but ultimately not really on my agenda right now.
• Nor is being asked if I'd like a sugar daddy.
• Nor are any of the other obscene things people have propositioned me with online - and I'm no prude.

All in all, OkCupid success rating? I'm still working on my verdict. In the meantime, I actually (and possibly shamefully) posted a link to my blog on my own profile.

Hey guys! Still up for "liking" me now?

Life Update #2: Flovember Rain

Have you ever tried Jager and Coke? You should. Few kinds of alcohol merit the term "delightful" as sincere praise but since pioneering this concoction myself, I struggle to find another word to use. Jager and Coke is essentially a party in liquid form - well, if your kind of party comprises of staggering behind the cashier desk at 10am the next morning, hands still shaking as you enter the digits and watching the shop go round and round. It might not be yours, but apparently it's mine.

Speaking of "shop", that's a thing now - "I was looking for a job and then I found a job". No longer are my weekends spent sitting at my desk in gross cotton knickers, desperately searching for the right words to finish a short story I should have realistically abandoned months ago. Instead, I have found myself working in the starry industry of retail, namely Superdrug. Indeed, these days I'm a small, thoroughly unimportant cog in the corporate machine, offering you beauty cards and Star Buys before you can mutter "I'm actually in, like, a bit of a rush?". I exist exclusively in the backdrop of your retail experience; literally, I am the poorly paid extra in the movie of your life. But in turn, you are an extra in mine; the difference being, your movie probably doesn't have any Jager and Coke in it. Are you convinced yet? Have you jumped out of bed to run to the nearest bar? I hope so.

But the honest truth is that I'm actually a bit shit at my job; no good on the tills, that is. Truly, I take the "pro" out of "proletariat"- ask my boss, who just this weekend exclaimed in surprise "I was just thinking, you've not had to buzz for me for around two hours now!"

Because, well, yes - that's an unusually long time for me to not need help. It's all the numbers and the adding up and the rounding up and rounding down. Christ, I'm an English student, numbers may as well be riddles. The place might be called Superdrug but I surely bring nothing Super to the whole situation. Should be called Sorrydrug for the amount of times I have to mutter it, embarrassed and resisting the urge to mention my A Level grades in a last ditch attempt to prove that my brain is not totally filled with Maryland cookies and the Kardashians.

And it isn't, it really isn't. I also successfully applied for a marketing internship for a jewellery business, which is a genuinely wonderful, worthwhile way of spending my only day off. I sit in front of a laptop next to a kitten called Beau and a bag of Haribo, scanning through social media and planning blog posts and marketing strategies. I have no witty tales to share from the experience so far but it is massively fulfilling. On Friday I walked out of the office with eyes twinkling like the necklaces they sell, already looking forward to what next week might bring.

Hmm, other things?

I went on a terrible date with a terrible boy in the name of journalism. That was pretty crap, but like all those with taste buds, I love Irn Bru sorbet and would probably endure hellish things to get some of it - and 800 words, of course. I also went on OkCupid as half-research, half-"if it's good enough for Anya..." and ended up speaking to numerous guys, some of whom live infinitely more interesting sounding lives than me, some of whom need to acquire something close to actual lives. I booked a holiday to Berlin. I smiled and laughed my way through a horrible time of the year, because that fixes most things - or so it seems.

Just like my dad fixed my broken window, so I will no longer lie awake at night and be forced to wonder if I'm taking on too much, if my hair is too dark or my current outlook on uni even darker.