First dates
Soul-sucking as it is, a first date's the only way we're to find love. That's not to say all first dates are terrible — some are great.
Imagine...you and your friend have confessed to liking each other, and now the first date is just you two, celebrating the physical, mental high of mutual acceptance.
For the rest of us — adults with no chances of getting with our 1. taken, 2. way too attractive, or 3. flat-out non-existent friends — we're left with a perplexing way forward: head to our phones, court a stranger based on a (virtual) first impression, then completely win them over in a real life, mating ritual. You know the dance: text them a location, meet up, ask them questions around their favorite restaurants in the city, whether they've thought about moving, how many siblings they have, etcetera, et-fucking-agonizing-cetera.
The entire time, you're laser-focused on coming across atleast half normal, which takes ~80% of your mental energy. Another 15% is spent cringing at every other thing you or your date says, leaving a pathetic 5% for thinking of a follow-up question to try, desperately, to keep the conversation going.
Oh the sweet pain of it all.
And of course, the cruelest part: who knows if it'll work out! One at a time, we put ourselves out there, dancing and singing and hoping, praying, our call yields a response.
There's too much room for hope in these stupidly complex, unique, human brains of ours. Too much hope that these first dates'll all be worth it. That one day, we'll ask our last, stupid sibling question.
And that finally — dear fucking god — we'll partake in our last, first-date.