Not That Easy Read Online Free PDF Page B

agreed.”
    â€œWell, where is it?” I demanded, trying to ignore the twinge of discomfort I felt whenever my friends discussed drugs. It was theone thing I would never try—along with anal because there’s another perfectly good hole millimeters away—and it always made me feel distant from my drug-taking friends. Thank God Lara was as uncool as me and didn’t take MDMA either.
    â€œSo, it was a tiny star that I got on the sole of my foot,” she said. “But that bit of your skin is really rough so it doesn’t really work for tattoos and they disappear over time. If you squint you can kind of see the outline though.” She thrust her bare left foot in our faces.
    â€œOh yeah,” said Lara. “Holy shit, that’s crazy.”
    Emma nodded wistfully. “Isn’t it? Those days were fun. Not that I don’t love being with Sergio, obviously. He’s great and I love him.”
    Lara and I nodded along with her, still transfixed by her surprise tattoo. “Anyway,” continued Emma, “Lara, you’re not getting out of sharing your dating stories.”
    â€œOkay, but I’m going to need more wine to relive these,” she said.
    Emma filled up our glasses and I closed the laptop screen. “Spill,” I said.
    â€œOkay, so it started with SafariLover,” she said. “And, no, I don’t mean he liked animals. He was actually called Jake, but he worked for Apple doing some techy stuff. We went for drinks in Farringdon on our first date but he spent the whole time discussing fucking
bitcoins
. On a plus note, he was as attractive as his pictures and at least six foot, but it was just the bitcoins . . .” We nodded sympathetically and she continued. “Obviously I still snogged him, but then I didn’t reply to any of his texts after that. Then I moved on to date two. He was Juanderful.”
    â€œWonderful?” asked Emma.
    â€œNope. JUAN-derful. That was his OKC username. He was Spanish, thirty-five and very, very attractive. Unfortunately, he lacked brain cells and was basically just there to improve hisEnglish. So that didn’t work. We had an amazing goodbye kiss though—I was seriously tempted to go back to his but couldn’t handle doing dirty talk in another language.”
    â€œI can’t even do it in English,” I said.
    â€œYou just need the practice,” said Emma reassuringly. “So, what about date three?”
    â€œAveragecupid56.” She grinned.
    â€œThere are fifty-five other average cupids?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
    â€œCan’t imagine any of them being like Mr. 56 though. He turned up on a bicycle, for starters.”
    â€œWow, guess he wasn’t planning on getting lucky,” I said.
    â€œThat didn’t stop my tattoo guy.” Emma grinned.
    â€œIt wasn’t so much the bike that bothered me, it was more the fact that he was sitting in the corner of the pub waiting for me with a copy of the
Guardian
.” We groaned. “Oh no, it gets worse. He took me to a restaurant where he ordered quinoa and then spent the entire time discussing his
gap yah
and dream to volunteer for that Médecin Sans Frontières thing. He was definitely the fittest of the three and clearly intelligent but he was the biggest stereotype ever. It was kind of off-putting, but—”
    â€œBut you still snogged him?” I interrupted.
    She gave me a withering look. “What do you take me for? I shagged him.”
    ELK123
22, London
    My self-summary:
    I live in East London and work in the media but am not the typical stereotype—I promise. I don’t wear plastic glasses,I hardly ever wear vintage and I’d much rather be traveling around the world with a backpack. Okay, maybe I am the stereotype . . .
    What I’m doing with my life:
    Interning. Generally involves fetching lattes, crying in the loo and wondering why I bothered