Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

I could tell from the way she softly clicked her teeth together twice while keeping her mouth closed, flicked her eyes to the top left and grunted once subvocally that she’d just adjusted me to be more handsome. She would probably pass it off as checking her messages if I confronted her.

She had this annoying habit all through dinner of either blinking or darting her eyes to one side after making a point or a joke. I knew she was sending images, links, and videos to my eyes to assist the conversation. I saw nothing. I’d never had the work done.

She sat in front of me, mildly pretty in a way I could adjust to gorgeous if I had the right hardware in my head, humming and twitching like someone with mild tourette’s syndrome. She seemed to pick up about halfway through the date that I wasn’t just being stoic or ignoring her on purpose. The expression on her face took on a feeling of revulsion and then polite smiles as the rest of our night progressed. It didn’t last much longer. Her tics didn’t stop, they only slowed down to motions that indicated to me that she was talking to other people and staying current on the feeds. I found it rude but no doubt she found it rude that I couldn’t join in.

I still had my communicator tablet iLife screen in my pocket. I’d check my traffic after the date ended like I was raised to do. It was only polite. I wasn’t raised in the city like she was. I tried to pay for dinner but she said she’d already taken care of it. The date ended.

I looked at my phone after a polite peck on the cheek goodbye from her. I saw that as she had sat down at the beginning, she had friended me on FB3, added me on Starcrossed, met me on Saw-u, hailed me on Communicator, knocked on me through FrontDoor, rated me on Datemate, invited me on Contact, opened to me on NiceOne, queried me on AskMe and sent me virtual flowers and a kiss through Sendlove.com. Our conversation had been webcast.

Only eighty hits so far and none since the beginning of dessert. Sad.

As she left the restaurant, I watched her requests get withdrawn. I was blocked, ignored, shunted, slammed, hung up on, darkened, erased, blinded, stealthed, closed and deleted. Her profiles disappeared off my networks. The invitations disappeared. The flowers and a kiss evaporated. I wouldn’t even be able to call her now.

Blogged, vlogged and flogged, they called it.

The comments on the webcast weren’t flattering. She rated me two stars out of ten. The top tweet said that she was being generous.

I have to get implants.