Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

Kyle gazed at the array of screens in Jeremy’s cube. “Naw, this is normal. I do the same thing at home.”

Jeremy sighed, but a vague chill swept up his spine as he realized he was not that much different from Kyle. He just always had his screen with him.

He glanced at his email program, noting that he had 422 emails. As he looked at the app it opened, the first email being from his administrative assistant asking, Where the hell ARE you? Harrison’s shitting bricks!

He’d have to sort that out later. Maybe tell them some kind of virus had knocked him out, sent him to the hospital . . .

He looked at his phone app, but it was the one square that never opened, no matter how long he looked at it.

“I don’t suppose we can call anyone, can we?” he asked Kyle.

Kyle laughed, a dopey-dog laugh. “Yeah, right. Naw, we can text and email and tweet and post to Facebook and pretty much everything else, but we can’t use the actual phone part. You can dial any number you want and it won’t go through. I’ve tried. It’s great.”

Great. Jeremy sighed. He mentally shut off the mail and plopped himself in his chair. “Okay, so we need to go here , right?” He opened the iLove app. A large welcome screen appeared.

Macy was on this site, he thought.

“What’d they say about you?” Kyle asked.

Jeremy was clicking around the site. Find a Girl, Contact a Girl, See the Girls Looking at You . . .

“Who?”

“On your profile. Haven’t you looked ? Why do you think you haven’t gotten any mail?”

“Kyle, I’m not on this site. This is the first time I’ve even opened the app.”

“Oh man.” Kyle shook his head slowly. “Then how’d you get out?”

He craned his neck to look up at the towering Kyle. “I didn’t get out. I just went upstairs. You’re saying I have to do this to get out?”

“Upstairs?” Kyle repeated. “I thought there was only a downstairs.”

It took half a lifetime but Jeremy finally bled Kyle of all the information he had on the subject. According to him, to get out of here Jeremy had to get a date with a woman (or man or whatever, depending on who you were) on this site, at which time he could get out to go on the date. Afterward, he’d end up back here. The only way to stop this cycle was to establish a real relationship with the right woman. Then he would get out permanently.

Macy, he thought again. If he could find her on here, maybe he could get a date and actually get to see her. He wouldn’t have to send her any emotional email bombs, or make up reasons why they couldn’t get together to talk . . . A flutter of hope bounced around in his chest. If he saw her he could convince her to give him another chance. Maybe.

If that didn’t work he didn’t know what he’d do. Because how in the world could he start a real relationship with a new woman when he was still in love with the last one?

“That could take forever,” he thought out loud. Then, to Kyle, “Relationships take time, you know? And in the meantime, what? I lose my job and go broke? Who makes the rules around here?”

“They don’t let that happen,” Kyle said. “Look at me, I’ve been here for months and I still have my job.”

“How do you even know ?” Jeremy threw up his hands. “You’ve been trapped in here like a mouse with a big block of cheese.”

“Yeah, well, online banking. They’re still paying me, so I’m still working.”

“This is crazy,” Jeremy muttered, dropping his elbow on the desk and putting his head in his hand. How would he even find Macy? Nobody used their real name on here, just those cutesy “handles.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not the only ones. People who get into trouble gambling, or in the stock market, or watching too much porn, or whatever, on their phones are sent to places like this too. Same kinda rules.”

“And how do you know that?” Jeremy sat up straight.

“Queenie Hartz told me. She thought I didn’t get it. But, see, I did get it, I just didn’t want to go out on any dates. Not that that’s been a problem, not with what they wrote about me.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’?”

“Look, you got mail.” Kyle reached over and took the mouse, dragging it swiftly across the page to Jeremy’s mailbox. It contained one note from someone named SeriousFun844.

Dear GnatMan: Are you kidding with this profile? Do you actually think someone’s going to think it’s cute? Why don’t you write something serious? Share something of yourself. We don’t bite, you know. You’re a good-looking guy, if that’s really your picture. But if you’re actually the jerk portrayed in the essay, forget it. Telling people you’re an asshole up front still doesn’t make it okay to be an asshole.

Let me know. I’m serious.

And I’m fun. :-) Gina

Jeremy stared at the words. “I’m portrayed as an asshole ?”

“Probably.” Kyle moved the mouse over to the profile and clicked. “That’s what they do, list all your worst qualities. And don’t even think about changing it, it doesn’t work. It just adds more bad stuff.”

The first problem was the picture. It was him, all right, and not a bad shot, but it had been a photo of him and Macy at a restaurant last summer, out of which she had been rather obviously and ungracefully cropped.

Then, to cap it off were the words:

I’m fresh out of a relationship and in desperate need of a new one. I always have to be with someone—even if it’s just for arm candy. Though I would love to fall head over heels for someone, for most of my life I believed love was impossible, if not simply a delusional dream of the desperate. Well, count me in now!

I’m self-centered and self-gratifying. I pay minimal attention to my dates unless they’re wearing something hot and we’re about to have sex. Sometimes superficial and regularly overconfident, I can be an insensitive bastard to those who can do nothing for me.

The thing went on in the same vein, ringing just enough bells of veracity to sink Jeremy’s spirits. Was that really who he was? He certainly recognized some of the base impulses, but he hadn’t acted on them, had he? He tried his best to be a decent guy. No, he was a decent guy.

Wasn’t he?

Jesus, if Macy saw that . . . how could he write to her now? Even if he could find her?

“So if everybody on here has a crappy profile, why would anyone not in this crazy place use the app?” Jeremy asked, scrolling through the litany of horrors that was his dating profile. “Who wants to pick out a jerk to date?”

“Oh the site’s open to everybody. We’re a really small percentage overall. You can look around and see. Most people are normal.”

Which would make it even harder to attract someone—and even easier for Macy to find someone better than him. Losing hope rapidly, he looked up at his own handle.

“Why am I called ‘GnatMan’?” he asked, hoping it showed a kind of appealing self-deprecation, some awareness of his place in the universe, or maybe some clue that the profile was a big joke.

But, like the grim reaper, Kyle reached out one long finger and pointed at a line in the essay: I have the attention span of a gnat.

* * *

Macy could hardly believe her eyes. Two weeks after breaking up with Jeremy and then hearing absolutely nothing from him, she was sitting in her office after hours looking at his grinning face on an iLove dating profile. He’d actually come up in her Guys You Should Look At section!

Her entire body flushed with mortification. He’d certainly gotten over her in a hurry.

She leaned close. She had taken that photo! They’d been waiting for a table at Captain Newick’s and he’d been smiling so big—he had a killer smile—that she told him he looked like the picture of the cartoon captain on the wall behind him. He’d gathered her in close and they took a selfie with the sign. But only she knew it was behind him now, as it—along with herself—had been unceremoniously cropped out of the picture.