Loveless. Alice Oseman

don’t think I’ll –’

      ‘It’s just an idea! You don’t have to, like, love them, but just look out for anyone you see who you wouldn’t mind finding more about.’

      And then she was out the door.

      I was half an hour into About Time when I picked up my phone and downloaded Tinder.

      I definitely wasn’t going to talk to anyone. I was just curious.

      I just wanted to know if I would ever see a guy and think, Yeah, he’s hot.

      So I made a Tinder profile. I picked five of my best selfies from Instagram and spent another half an hour trying to think what to write in my ‘About’ section, before settling on ‘Cheesy-romcom connoisseur’.

      The first guy who popped up was ‘Myles, 20, Student’. He had brown hair and a leer. In one picture he was playing snooker. I got a bad vibe and swiped left.

      The second guy was ‘Adrian, 19, Student’. His bio said he was an adrenaline junkie who was looking for his ‘manic pixie dream girl’, which got an instant swipe left.

      I swiped left on four more guys, then realised that I wasn’t even looking at them properly – I was just reading the bios and making an assessment as to whether I thought we’d get on. That wasn’t the point. I was supposed to be finding someone I was physically attracted to.

      So after that I tried to properly focus on their appearances. Their faces, their eyes, their mouths, their hair, their style. These were the things you were supposed to like. What did I like? What was my standard? What were my preferences?

      After ten minutes of this, I stumbled upon a guy who looked like a model, so I was unsurprised when I looked at his info and read ‘Jack, 18, Model’. He had a sharp-cut jawline and a symmetrical face. His main photo was clearly from a magazine advert he’d done.

      I tried to picture myself dating Jack, 18, Model. Kissing him. Having sex.

      Like, if it was gonna be anyone, based on appearance alone, surely it would be Jack, 18, Model, with his cool denim jacket and dimples.

      Imagine kissing that face.

      Imagine him leaning in.

      Imagine his skin near you.

      My thumb hovered over the screen for a moment. Trying to ignore the nauseated feeling in my stomach at the pictures I was conjuring in my head.

      Then I swiped left.

       Georgia Warr

      hello fried egg i have an update

      i swiped left on all of them lol

       Rooney Bach

      Haha what do you mean all of them

       Georgia Warr

      just all the ones i looked at

       Rooney Bach

      And how many was that?

       Georgia Warr

      idk like … forty?

      tinder isn’t for me i think lol

      sorry to disappoint

       Rooney Bach

      I’m not disappointed haha I just hoped it would help

      FORTY

      Wow!!

      Okay!

       Georgia Warr

      so that’s a lot to swipe left on??

       Rooney Bach

      You really do have high standards

      That’s not necessarily a bad thing but at least we’ve got that sussed

       Georgia Warr

      so what do i do now

       Rooney Bach

      Might have to go back to good old-fashioned Meeting People In Real Life

       Georgia Warr

      ew

      hate that for me

      I deleted Tinder from my phone, then hit play on About Time again, wondering why picturing myself in any sort of romantic or sexual situation made me feel like I was going to vom and/or run a mile, while romance in movies felt like the sole purpose of being alive.

      

      Rooney was right about one thing: meeting people in real life was probably the only way this was going to work for me. Fortunately, it was Freshers’ Week, and I still had many opportunities to meet people, which continued on the Friday when Rooney and I went to the Freshers’ Fair.

      ‘I’m going to join so many societies,’ Rooney said, and I didn’t take her that seriously, but when we went round all the stalls in the Student Union building, she collected so many flyers that she made me start carrying some of them for her.

      I’d arranged to meet Pip and Jason there too but wasn’t sure where to find them because the Student Union building was huge. They’d have to wait. The most important task at hand was joining university societies. Alongside clubbing, which I had epically failed at, societies were a staple of university life and supposedly one of the easiest ways to make friends with like-minded people.

      But as we walked round the stalls, I started to feel nervous. Maybe a little overwhelmed. I tentatively signed up to English Soc with Rooney, but apart from that, I could barely even remember what I was interested in. Creative Writing Soc? I didn’t really enjoy writing that much – the few occasions I’d tried writing my own fanfic were disastrous. Film Soc? I could just watch movies in bed. There were even super-niche things like Anime Soc, Quidditch Soc and Snowboarding Soc, but they all seemed like they catered for a specific group of friends who just wanted an excuse to hang out and do their favourite hobby together. I didn’t know what my hobbies were any more, except yearning for romance and reading fanfiction.

      In fact, the only other society I wanted to join was the Durham Student Theatre. I could see its giant stall at the end of the hall.

      I’d definitely meet new people if I was in a play this year.

      Rooney ended up walking on ahead, excited to chat to all the people on the stalls. I ambled along, feeling increasingly like I just didn’t really fit anywhere, until I realised I had reached the stall of Durham’s Pride Society.

      It stood out boldly with a giant rainbow flag behind it and had quite a sizeable gathering of freshers standing near it, chatting excitedly to the older students behind the table.

      I picked up one of their leaflets to have a look. Most of the front page was decorated with some of the identities it supported in arty fonts. The ones I knew well were at the top – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender – and then, to my surprise, it moved into ones I’d only really heard on the internet – pansexual, asexual, aromantic, non-binary. And more. I didn’t even know what some of them meant.

      ‘College child?’ said a voice, and I looked up and was faced with Sunil Jha, my college parent.

      On his woolly jumper he was wearing all his pins again, and he was smiling warmly at me. He was definitely the nicest person I’d met at Durham so far, not counting Rooney. Could he be my friend? Did college parents count as friends?

      ‘Interested in signing up?’ he asked.