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Single By Choice

Phil Wheeler

Single by choice

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  Copyright 2014 Phil Wheeler

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  Single by choice

  “Alright, let’s see what’s going on!” said Sam. He opened up his browser, selected Bookmarks, and chose the DateTime site.

  Sam had only been single for a short time, and had found the whole process of dating after 39 years of marriage daunting. This hadn’t been the plan, but life sometimes throws you a curve and you don’t get many options; you can either catch it, get out of the way, or get hit with it. Sam got hit with it – right on the chin. When you say ‘tell death do you part’ you don’t really know what that means until you come face to face with the reality of it. For Sam, that reality was 7 months past, and he was starting over. Meeting women the old fashion way, picking them up at bars, had never been his style, and you can only buy so much at the local supermarket, so he’d tried a dating service. The screen opened up, and Sam smiled. Each time he got a response it was like hitting the Lotto.

  “Ok, three hits. Let’s take a look.” Sam said to no one in particular.

  The first picture was of a nice older lady that looked to be about 70, only her profile said that she was 54! Pass. Number two was, to be generous, stout. Sam took a quick look at the profile – yup, for “body type” it listed ‘above average’. Whatever happened to truth in advertizing? To be honest, he was no great catch; he was overweight, had thinning hair, and average looks. Still, he felt that he had a lot to offer, if only the right person could see that!

  The third hit was more interesting. She had sent a ‘flirt’, liking his picture. Sam quickly clicked on the picture of a very attractive younger blond, and was rewarded with her profile containing three pictures. The first picture was a face shot of an attractive young woman of 49, the second was of her in a blue sundress. The third picture was her standing on the edge of a pool in a bikini! Wowser! He returned to her profile, and this is what he read.

  “Hi, I am a widow, and I am trying this dating thing because my kids say I am driving them crazy. I hate winter, and I am bored, so what the heck! Here is a little brain work for you. Count every 0 in between the lol’s and u can get my digit to send a text to me!

  LoooooooL LoooL looooooL LoooooooooL and here are some more LoooooL LoooooL LoooooL and another couple to look at LoooooL loooooL Take your time and count the ZERO’s, I am worth the effort! LoL

  Sam sat at his screen for a while, a perplexed look on his face. He studied the message, and finally said “Count the zero’s between the LoL’s and get her digit to send her a text? What the heck - ?”

  He wasn’t getting it, what was the meaning of this cryptic message from this lovely blond? He stared at the picture of her in the bikini, and then stared at the message. He copied it, and imported it to a Word document, and stared at it some more.

  “Ok, let’s get started with the obvious. There are ten zero’s in the first two LoL’s, there’s 15 in the next two. Those are followed by two 5’s – no, there are three 5’s, that’s 15 more; than two more 5’s. That totals 50. So there are 50 0’s between the LoL’s.” Sam sat back in his chair and viewed the screen. Something was wrong; he knew it, for it had been too easy. He stared at the screen, and then it came to him. “Tricky girl!” he said quietly, “There is another 0 between the LoL’s, the word ‘zero’. That has got to count, so there are 52 0’s, not 51.”

  He sat back in satisfaction to contemplate his handiwork. He’d solve the puzzle of this beautiful woman, and now all he had to do was tell her so. Then it hit him; if you count the 0 in the 1st LoL, surely you must count the last! And that last one would make it 53! Ha Ha!

  Sam quickly composed his letter, explaining in great detail his feat. In summation he wrote:

  “A very nice little cipher, and the clue was just oblique enough to make it interesting – ‘Here is a brain work. Count every O in between the lols and u can get my digit to send [a] text to me…’

  You must be a Sherlock Holmes fan! Bravo!

  I’m single by choice, but it isn’t by my choice. I haven’t been single that long, just long enough to know how hard it is to be without someone. Drop me a line.”

  He hit enter, and sent it off to her. It was difficult to concentrate on much the rest of the evening, she was very pretty, and she was very young, and she had ‘liked’ him first.

  He had started on dating services more as a whim, than having any real hope of finding someone. A TV commercial about this one dating service for “older” people had caught his eye, and he investigated by going to the site. In the commercial, all the women looked like Christie Brinkley, and all the guys like Richard Gere. The reality was almost all the women looked like old Aunt Sara, and the good looking ones didn’t return your ‘friend requests”. He had tried different ways of meeting them. If he saw a woman he found attractive he would send her off I clever note; like “I just sent my best friend your picture to prove to him that angels do exist.” He even tried ridiculous ones, like “If you were a booger I'd pick you first.” After a while he thought that he would like to be the last man on earth — so that he could find out if all those girls were telling the truth. He’d met a few, but nobody that he wanted to see more than once. It was like going on blind dates over and over again. He went to bed without hearing back from her. “I hope this works!” he said, “I’ve been on so many blind dates I should get a free dog.”

  The next day passed without incident; no answer from the beautiful blond, and no more hits on the dating service. Sam had already decided to let his subscription drop at the end of the month; dating sites were starting to feel like watching porn. Sorting through pictures by the hour, reviewing profiles: the only thing that was missing was live webcams; it all seemed such a waste! By that evening he was of the belief that he was not going to hear from her. He went to bed.

  He awoke from sleep with an epiphany! He’d been wrong about the cipher from his mysterious lady; it had nothing to do with the count. He raced to his computer to test his theory!

  “Let’s see if I’m right!” he said. He opened the flirt response, and again read her message.

  “Count every 0 in between the lol’s and u can get my digit to send a text to me!” it said.

  LoooooooL LoooL looooooL LoooooooooL and here are some more LoooooL LoooooL LoooooL and another couple to look at LoooooL loooooL Take your time and count the ZERO’s, I am worth the effort! LoL

  Ok, the first count was a 7, and the second was 3, followed by a 6, then a 9 and a 5 and a 5 – on it went until the number 7369555551 was revealed. It certainly had the right count, but there was only one way to be sure! He grabbed his phone and called the number that had been revealed. It rang; he’d been right, it was a phone number! After a few more rings and a pleasant voice answered, but before he could speak the voice continued “I’m not able to take your call. Leave a message at the beep. Have a great day!” Thinking quickly he said, “Hello, I think that I got the right number. If you are the one with the LOL message on DateTime please give me a call at this number.”, and he hung up the phone.

  Sitting back in his chair, he contemplated what had just happened. The voice fit the picture, and he just could not believe the number was random chance. It had to be her! This was really getting exciting, his hopes were high! He went through the day smiling. That evening he
was sitting and watching TV when the phone rang with that peculiar sound that indicated he’d received a text message. Eagerly he picked up his phone and reviewed the message.

  From: Val

  Lol. You got me. How are you

  doing today and what is your name?

  He quickly typed a response:

  To: Val

  I awoke to an epiphany – your message

  wasn’t just a brainteaser! I deciphered

  the code & made the call.

  Very clever!

  The response came in minutes:

  From: Val

  Send me your email address as well and

  I will send you more of my pictures and

  you can respond with yours. We can learn

  more about each other

  Sharon

  Sharon! Her name was Sharon! This was just crazy! A million thoughts raced through Sam’s mind. What should he do next, send her his Email? That scared Sam, he didn’t like to open Email’s from people he didn’t know, even hot blonds who flirted with him. He was at war with himself – yes, no – should he, or shouldn’t he? Maybe she was ‘catfishing’? Why would this very attractive woman be interested in him, why not? Over and over the contrasting thoughts rolled through his mind. Finally, he decided on the safe approach. He sent her another text:

  To: Val

  Hi – would you like to talk?

  The day went by slowly. Food had lost its taste, and the sun shining in the sky did not warm him. His thoughts were only about Sharon. Had he found true love? The wait was excruciating. A day passed, and then another, and he realized that it was over. Sharon was not the girl of his dreams, Sharon was a 30 year old guy named Pavithra, and he lived in Suriname. Yes, it had all been a scam.

  Can you find true love on the internet? Sure, but you could also probably find it just as easily by opening a phone book, randomly selecting a number and calling it. It seemed to Sam that life was a series of misfortunes interspersed with the occasional disappointment.

  If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.

  If there is pain in knowing, my knowledge I despise.