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Chantelle didn’t respond to the message. Days passed and Niall didn’t hear from her at all in any way. He’d clung onto a vain hope that she might change her mind after a little time to think. It became apparent rather soon that she definitely wasn’t going to. Their relationship was over.

A week or so after the breakup, Niall messaged Stacey to see how she was. They sent a few messages back and forth and everything was very affable as it always had been. Then, out of nowhere, Stacey said that she couldn’t talk to him anymore and wouldn’t offer an explanation as to why. He asked whether Chantelle had told her not speak to him. Minutes later came a text message from Chantelle that told him, in no uncertain terms, that Stacey was acting out of loyalty to her and that he had no right to suggest that she’d been put under duress. Niall wasn’t convinced. In fact, he had to stop short of messaging her back and calling her a blatant liar.

The fact that Chantelle couldn’t even come up with any nice parting words really weighed heavy on Niall. He’d been a big enough man to admit his faults in the failure of their relationship and the fact that she apparently wasn’t prepared to accept and admit hers riled him. It riled him to the point that he began to feel genuine loathing towards her.

He turned to C-MAC again; sending messages to myriad women. He was very quick to get to arranging meetings with them rather than spend weeks messaging back and forth as he always had done. While decidedly few responded to his direct approach, he managed to intrigue a couple with it.

He set up a date with a woman named Alison. She was a few years older than him and very pretty judging by the photos on her profile; however, it turned out that the photos, while all undoubtedly of her, were rather old ones and she’d changed considerably since they were taken. Niall, in no mood to be messed around, found an excuse to leave soon after meeting. Were there any good, honest women left anymore?

The next date by virtue of C-MAC was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Niall travelled for over an hour to meet with a beautiful young woman called Joanna. With her having seemed extremely keen while they were messaging, Niall had no reason to believe anything would go wrong. So, when she didn’t turn up for the date and wouldn’t respond to any messages or calls, Niall was understandably vexed. He sent her a message on C-MAC too, only to discover that she deleted her profile on the website very soon after.

The choice wasn’t a difficult one for Niall to make. From the get-go, the online dating experience had been a complete bust. From those pointless several-week-long conversations to the brief albeit hurtful experience with Chantelle, C-MAC had proven only to be a perpetual thorn in his side. He took one last look at Chantelle’s profile. Chantasy! For a brief time, she certainly had been a fantasy for him. Unfortunately, the reality wasn’t quite as fantastic. He sighed aloud; despairing over the fact that things had gone so awry.

He cycled back to his profile, quickly found the option to deactivate, and hesitated momentarily. “Good riddance!” he mumbled before selecting the ‘Yes’ option. He then deleted the catchmeacatch.com application from his phone. Niall’s online dating experience had reached its conclusion.

After doing that, he took a look through the contacts on his phone. He quickly found the name he was looking for and selected it. Niall’s typical style was that he would have vacillated for a minute whilst toying with the idea of contacting the person or not. In his present state of mind, there was no need to stop and think. He knew exactly what he wanted and he knew exactly where to get it from. He lifted the phone to his ear and waited for the person on the other end to pick up, which they soon did.

“Hey, Fiona. Long time, no see!”

TO BE CONTINUED

Title image from Shine Aloud.