Like Mother, Like Daughters (16) (Patreon)

We're getting our "Veronica enters the dating pool" chapter that tied in the chapter 16 poll first! Dating apps are hard for fat girls, but our dear Veronica can't help rolling the dice. Maybe she'll get lucky?

***

Just another fun and exciting evening swiping through the apps, Veronica thought with a sigh. She was lying on the couch in the dark, plump face lit up with the blue light from her phone screen. Her face was expressionless, hardly moving as she swiped (and swiped and swiped and swiped), save the occasional eyeroll or twist of disgust.

Veronica had never really liked dating apps—enough so that she hadn’t made a single dating profile until just a few weeks ago. She liked to believe she was an old soul, preferring analog meet-cutes and getting introduced to potential matches through coworkers or friends or family. But that was before she started feeling lonely every time she sat in her apartment by herself, and before she realized that her coworkers didn’t know her very well, and she didn’t really have any friends—even her old teammates hadn’t really reached out to her since she’d quit—and her family was in a different state altogether.

So: The Apps.

Making her first profile had been a painful exercise. Writing about herself was difficult, made worse by the fact that she had trouble even answering some of the prompts. She didn’t really have hobbies or interests to list out. No favorite music artists or TV shows. She refused to say she’d once been a pro soccer player as a “fun fact” because that was guaranteed to raise eyebrows as they looked at her photos and saw what a blimp she’d become.

The photos were truly the worst part. Veronica was not a solo selfie-taker. She’d only felt compelled to take photos when she was in a group—at a party in high school, or with her team. She’d never felt that she was worth documenting on her own.

Which meant the most recent photos of herself that she had were from the cruise. She hated all of them. Not because there weren’t any where she didn’t look cute (for a fat girl, anyway), but because they reminded her how big she’d gotten. Worst of all, she knew she was noticeably heavier than she had been on the cruise, so even using any of them felt like false advertisement. She included a few of them anyway, specifically ones that showed off her cleavage and mostly obscured the beginnings of her double belly.

Not wanting to give a completely unrealistic presentation of herself, however, she did dress up and take some selfies, including (ick) full-body photos. The whole thing felt embarrassing. She put on a dress that fit okay, but didn’t do much to obscure her plush middle or her too-big everything. Even with makeup, there wasn’t a way to hide how round her face was, or her double chin. She took the time to look up techniques for taking flattering selfies, but cutesy poses and phone positioning couldn’t change that she was fat.

She’d uploaded the photos and completed her profile and forced herself to accept that she couldn’t do much better now. Someday—soon, she hoped—she would get her shit together and ditch the flab, and life would be better. For now, she would be content if she didn’t have to feel so alone all the time.

The weeks since her profile had gone live had been a learning experience. She didn’t get many matches, for one thing. That wasn’t all that surprising to her, knowing she looked like a cow in all her pics and her profile might as well have been empty otherwise, but it did manage to lower her self-esteem a bit. (She hadn’t realized that was possible at this point, figuring it was already as low as it could be.) When she did match with someone, they either immediately jumped into talking about wanting to fuck her or have her suck their dick in graphic detail with zero preamble, or said something about how ugly she was (as if she didn’t know), or they had some weird fetishy thing going on, or they never messaged her at all. She tried messaging a few people she was interested in first, only to have them unmatch her without responding, which stung.

Altogether, the whole experience was awful. Which did not explain why she signed up for three more apps, as if somehow a wider pool of people would solve the problem. After a few weeks, she felt hopelessly addicted to it all. She kept coming back, almost craving the constant rejection and harassment.

That night, lying on her couch, she wasn’t expecting anything. She’d been on the apps long enough that she wasn’t a new face anymore—her matches had been made, and the trickle of new users who the almighty algorithm might seek to match her with was too slow for her to see much activity most of the time.

And then she got a message from a man named Dion. According to his profile, he was Italian, and he had photos of himself dressed in chef’s whites. He liked to travel, go wine-tasting, and apparently had a small sailboat. He didn’t write much, but what was there made him seem interesting and mysterious. Veronica was smitten.

His first message was friendly, and showed he’d paid close attention to her photos. He asked her how she’d liked her visit to one of the islands she’d visited on her cruise—the one where they’d taken that godforsaken bike tour and snapped photos with a view of the island in the background—and mentioned he’d spent a few weeks there once learning how to make some of the local dishes.

She felt nervous as she answered him. He seemed worldly and not like someone who should be interested in her. But their conversation flowed easily. Messaging him made Veronica feel special, and for the first time in a while she felt worth being interested in. They had so much to talk about that they stayed up late into the night, and only stopped because they fell asleep.

The conversation continued as soon as they woke up in the morning. It all went well, until a moment she’d been dreading arrived: he finally asked what she did for work.

She liked her job, and for most people saying you were a food critic wouldn’t be a big deal. It might even carry some prestige. But Veronica was fat. She half expected him to take a dig at her—say it made total sense she ate for a living, because look at the size of her. If that happened, she would be devastated.

Well. Better to ruin things sooner rather than later. So she told him, bracing herself for the worst.

She wasn’t expecting him to reply, “Hold on—are you Veronica Emple?” like her name actually meant something to him. Before she had time to be creeped out that he knew her last name, he told her she’d reviewed one of his restaurants (and she noted the wording—“one of my restaurants.” Not “the restaurant I work at.” Interesting.), and only given it a middling review. That… was actually more embarrassing than him poking fun at her size. Who was she to tell this man his food wasn’t good? She felt stupid and a little panicked.

“wait, what restaurant???”

She racked her brain. Had they met before? She was certain she would’ve remembered him.

“I own The Swineherd.”

Oh god. One of her first reviews. Looking back on it, she still stood by her assessment: the presentation had been awkward and too didactic, though the food had been delicious. She still craved those potato noodles sometimes…

“I actually learned a lot from your review. You were right—the presentation was a mess.” He went on to say he’d read every one of her reviews since. “I don’t always agree with you, but you have good taste. What a pleasure to finally put a pretty face to the name.”

That left her blushing. Aside from the occasional letter to the editor, it was rare she got such positive feedback about her work. The compliment about her looks had her aflutter, too. He thought she was pretty and a good writer and had worthwhile opinions about food? She might combust right there.

Then he asked her on a date. “The restaurant is closed for New Year’s, so we’d have it all to ourselves. I’d like to redeem myself and see if I can’t make you a meal worthy of a good review.”

Well, how could she say no to that?