The Blind Date by Landish, Lauren (suggested reading .txt) 📕

work that’s right here on my laptop. Either I’m touching up photos or editing videos, skills I proudly taught myself, or communicating with advertisers and potential sponsors.

But my favorite part of my computer work is the least directly profitable and the most rewarding. It’s responding to the people who comment and reach out to me. Especially my DMs. While I get the occasional dick pic from men who really, really need to learn what an acceptable boundary is, I don’t worry about them.

I message back people who legitimately reach out for help or for advice. It’s normally a joy of my day. But today’s been . . . distracting.

I posted one of the pictures I took before my date with Noah, just a selfie of me, not one of our couple shots. I wouldn’t share Noah that way without his permission or before talking to River and Arielle. But my being all glammed up has triggered a barrage of comments I wasn’t expecting.

Ooh, looking fine, Miss Sunshine. Where might you be off to?

Date! Date! Date!

Who’s the lucky man that gets to date Riley Sunshine?

The support is sweet, especially the comments on my dress, and I responded to a bunch of the early comments with teasers of my own, like ‘having dinner with a friend and felt cute.’ I even added a link to the dress in case anyone wanted to buy one of their own. And the Joroast makeup comments were just as kind and complimentary.

And then it started to go a little wonky.

Someone mentioned the dress showing off my ASSetts. And then someone else commented that those ‘buns needed a good glazing’ and added a hashtag of #sinnabuns. That’s actually pretty cute, and it started trending pretty quickly with people posting pictures of their own butts looking smackable. I love their body positivity and support that one hundred percent, but the comment on my picture felt skeevy with the gross sexualization of my picture by an account I’ve never seen before. Especially when the dress is perfectly reasonable, nothing more than a floral body-hugging cotton shift with a scoop neck and a mid-thigh hem.

And then the supposition and comments went way downhill and off-track into remote four-wheeler territory.

The good thing is that the commentary is pushing my views higher and higher, and any comment helps in the algorithms, creating a cycle of views. The not-so-good thing is that it’s turning ugly, with people who’ve never followed me commenting and others thinking they have a clue about my life beyond what I share willingly.

Ever notice she never shows anyone but herself? Can you say narcissistic?

Probably doesn’t have anyone. Sits alone in her room, pretending to have this great life, when she’s worse off than we are.

That butt is totally photoshopped. Or plastic. Probably both.

Face masks . . . fine. Kale smoothies . . . whatever. But now we’re supposed to be all rah-rah for your “date” too. I can’t find a fuck to give about your perfect life.

Made her a Starbies drink once. She was a total bitch. Sunshine? Fake AF.

Why do these people even care? I wonder as Raffy searches along the sidewalk for the perfect spot to pee, even though there’s only one tree and patch of grass for our building.

Their comments sting.

I shouldn’t let them, but they sting a lot, and while walking Raffy helps simply by pulling me away from the toxic environment and comments of the Internet, they still run around in my head like little grains of sand in my boots.

So I try to separate Riley Watson from Riley Sunshine.

What would Riley Sunshine tell someone in this situation to do? Probably to take the high road, stick to being who you are because haters gonna hate no matter what, so you should focus on making yourself happy. I try to breathe that energy in, dismissing the negativity as much as possible.

What should Riley Watson do? I consider deleting the photo. Seems like that’d be the fastest and easiest way to shut down the drama and stop the hurtful lashes to my psyche. But surprisingly, that’s not usually how the internet and social media work. At all. That’d likely add fuel to the fire.

The trick is to manage the fire.

Raffy finds his favorite, and only, tree and decides it’s time to squat, so I turn my back. I don’t know what goes on in his little doggy mind, but he won’t squat unless I’m ignoring him. A thousand other people can be walking around, cars driving by, a whole cheering section rooting him on, no problem. Me? Nope, he’s shy.

As I wait for my fur baby to finish his business, my phone rings. I see my mom’s name on the screen and my gut drops.

Oh, no! Has she already seen the drama too?

She checks my pages—was my first follower, in fact—and I wouldn’t put it past her to start commenting back to rude people, getting into some social media war with AbbaQueen79 on my behalf if she felt it was warranted.

“Hello, Mom.”

“Hi, honey . . . are you busy?” Mom asks. “I’m in the garden, and I could really use some help. You said you’d come by soon?” she reminds me. “The weatherman said it might rain tonight, and if I don’t get it done, I’m going to have to redo the whole darn thing. Are you . . . working today?”

Well, I guess the good news is . . . Mom doesn’t know about the rude comments. Actually, her needing help is good news too. It’ll get me away from the screen, out in the sunshine, and working with my hands.

Maybe I can take another picture and post it, pushing the drama-affiliated one further down my feed?

That’s not a bad idea.

“Sure, Mom . . . gimmie an hour to get a couple of things done?”

“Thanks, honey! See you then!”

I hang up and see that Raffy’s finished too. I’d like to bring him along, but if we’re actually going to be working, it might not be the best idea. He tends to tear up the garden with his enthusiasm. And he’ll probably sleep all day after