Chapter Text
You have matched with Ben!
Go ahead, start chatting to light up the flame!
(Kindling Message)
(Keep Swiping)
Ben: Hello “Lady in Silver”. Didn't know people were using pseudonyms on the apps these days. Has it really gotten so bad?
Lady in Silver: Haha, I hope not! Not to be full on in my first message, but I was discussing with a friend if a mysterious profile got better results than a fully open one on the apps. We are both social psychology students, so we decided to conduct a tiny experiment ourselves.
Ben: Intriguing! What are the results then, if you don't mind me asking?
Lady in Silver: Too early to tell really! I just made this profile today.
Ben: Is the profile picture a part of the social experiment as well? The gown looks gorgeous on you.
Lady in Silver: Me and my friend went to a Regency ball last year, organised by the uni's history students! It was lush. But of course you can't see my face. Keeping the mystery alive…
Ben: And if you get on well with someone on here, you will do a big face reveal?
Lady in Silver: Maybe! My theory is that these app conversations are always flirty and shallow, and therefore a bit boring so you never truly find a connection beyond the physical.
Ben: Well, what's wrong with a bit of flirty banter?
Lady in Silver: Ah, spoken like a man comfortable in those very same shallow waters.
Ben: Crap, you've got me dead to rights. But I'm open to a deeper connection.
Ben: I just don't know if that can be established on the apps. Needs a face to face meeting. Perhaps a slow dance after a few drinks, that kind of thing…
Lady in Silver: Hmm, you are very flirty! I disagree. I think every romance starts in the brain. Two people seeing each other for who they truly are is where that connection truly begins.
Ben: Okay, so am I meant to discount your looks entirely? It's not very fair since you know what I look like.
Lady in Silver: Well, that's one of the things that the previous studies on anonymity in dating profiles have found. A lot of people will swipe right on anonymous profiles just for the intrigue, but especially if they are drawn to the offer of the profile: usually kink content or sexual availability. (As summarised in Hollis, French and Lu, 2021.)
Ben: Wow, genuinely wow. Did you just do a citation in a Kindling conversation? As one of my idiot brothers would say: Mate…
Lady in Silver: So instead of kink or sexual availability my profile offers romantic intrigue for those types who want to dream of a fantasy, not live out a sexual fantasy.
Ben: So I am a dreamer?
Lady in Silver: It seems fitting, doesn't it? You haven't settled down yet and you enjoy the casual nature of flirting and maybe getting into a situationship for 2-4 months.
Ben: A lot of assumptions being made here…
Lady in Silver: Yes, well, I am not above following the DownWhistle gossip account. ;)
Ben: You know who I am? That's even more unfair when I don't know your name at all.
Lady in Silver: 89% of women look up their online dating matches through an internet search before going on a date (Newton and Coughlan, 2018).
Ben: Oh my goodness, another citation.
Ben: Who are you? I'm fascinated.
Lady in Silver: Well, I'm not posh enough to be featured on DownWhistle or get on the celebrity dating app Charlotte you're probably also on, lol. Just a lowly Masters student in London looking for love.
Lady in Silver: And I can't dance. Slow or fast.
Ben: Well, then you just haven't found the right teacher. Let me take you out, mystery woman.
Ben: Also Charlotte the app is dreadful. You're not missing out on anything.
Lady in Silver: See, another one of my hypotheses proven correct! Academia in action.
Lady in Silver: Maybe I'll say yes to that drink, but I'd still like to delve into deeper waters.
Lady in Silver: Tell me something nobody knows about you.
Ben: Christ, really? Just like that. Diving headfirst.
Ben: Let’s see.. well. I used to do art some years back. I thought I was quite good at it, too, got featured at some galleries. Then I found out it wasn't my talent that got me featured. It was because of my family's name. So I stopped.
Ben: There you go, Lady in Silver. Haven't even told my closest confidante and sister that.
Ben: Tell me something you haven't ever told anyone.
Lady in Silver: First of all, I'm sorry you stopped doing art. I'm sure you had talent, but that world can be reliant on name recognition as well. I'm not just saying that, either. I just did a cheeky search for it and I like your works a lot. The mood in them is instantly palpable.
Lady in Silver: Okay, let me think.
Lady in Silver: My dad left me money, but didn't want to be associated with me. I think he was ashamed of who my mum was. Married again. Kept sending money, but kept his distance, too.
Ben: What a bastard.
Lady in Silver: Yeah, well, he was someone with a lot of importance in society. No one really knows I'm his daughter. But it's not all bad: I'm good friends with one of my stepsisters! She came with me to the Regency ball.
Ben: That's lovely. I'm sorry to hear about your father.
Lady in Silver: How are you enjoying deeper waters?
Ben: I'm enjoying them a lot. There's a really nice cocktail bar in Mayfair called The BonBon Ton. Perhaps Friday? At 8PM?
Lady in Silver: Oh my, that's a little too posh for me. I'm a pint, hot chips and in bed by 10 kind of girlie myself!
Ben: Sorry, a friend recommended it, it's supposed to be really good and I would obviously be paying. I could do with a pint as well, I promise I'm not that painfully posh. How about the Footman John pub in Knightsbridge? Where do you live?
Lady in Silver: East London. Like, really east. So east you wouldn't recognise the post code as London.
Ben: Islington?
Lady in Silver: LOL so you're both funny and cute!
Ben: You think I'm cute?
Lady in Silver: Mate… Fishing for compliments.
Ben: More like diving into the lake for them.
Ben: How will I recognise you? I'm going to need a picture. Or a very detailed description. I can draw you based on it like a police sketch.
Lady in Silver: I've got dark hair and I'm quite short, 1.55 meters. But I haven't actually said yes to a drink yet, Mr Bridgerton.
Ben: Oh god so formal. At least call me Benedict.
Ben: Will you say yes, though?
Lady in Silver: Yes! But only if you find a nice pub or bar near a Central Line station somewhere east, ha. Your girl is tired of being on the Tube for an hour.
Ben: Completely fair. So, I found Cavender End in Walthamstow. I've never been myself, but my brother who fancies himself a travel influencer of sorts says it's really great and serves good food. For your chips.
Lady in Silver: That's great, thank you. So name your time and maybe I'll tell you what I'll be wearing.
Lady in Silver: Oh, I actually can't do Friday. My friend Hazel has a housewarming party. How about Saturday?
Ben has unmatched you on Kindling. This chat is therefore closed.
Benedict: Fuck fuck fuck you two used to use Kindling, right? How do I un-unmatch someone?
Anthony: I don't think you can.
Benedict: Fuck. There's got to be a way to do it, though? Surely. Don't you know the guy who made the app?
Anthony: Yes, but I can't contact him telling that your finger slipped. You'll seem like some bloody stalker. Didn't you get her number before you unmatched?
Benedict: I didn't even get her name. Or what she looks like.
Benedict: Long story, don't ask.
Colin: Sounds like you're proper fucked then. What do you actually know about her?
Benedict: I know her father is a prick, she lives in East London (very east, possibly on the Central Line), I know she has dark hair and is doing her Masters at a university in London. And she said ‘hot chips’ at some point which I believe is an Australian thing. She's got a friend named Hazel.
Colin: So an Australian female student in London with dark hair. Very neatly narrows it down to about 300,000 individuals.
Benedict: I am so fucked. Can Pen put something in a post about her? Maybe a call out of sorts?
Colin: What is she going to write? “If Ben Bridgerton has unmatched with you on Kindling, it was an accident and he's an eedjit”? You'll only have even more eager and probably wrong candidates to wade through.
Benedict: Maybe something about deeper waters? I don't know.
Anthony: This seems like a rather fruitless endeavor.
Benedict: Oh, her university held a Regency ball last year. Maybe that narrows it down?
Colin: Afraid that's a huge trend right now thanks to that one show. Every uni does them.
Benedict: Sod it.
Benedict: She mentioned some academic studies (don't ask) and I just looked up the names of these people if one of them would be her and it doesn't seem like any of them fit. Maybe this Rachel Hollis who's studying at LSE? Would it be weird to email her to ask if that was her?
Anthony: It’s a little weird, but you might as well go for it. It's been four months and you're still hung up on her?
Benedict: Rachel Hollis just replied to say the only apps she's on are the lesbian ones. Christ alive, it truly is hopeless.
Colin: Can a convo on the apps really be so great you're already obsessed with her? I thought they were the worst. El is always moaning about the apps.
Benedict: It really was spectacular. I just can't get her out of my head for some reason.
Colin: Tragic.
Benedict: Shut up, Mr Married. Both of you, really.
Sophie sighed and scrolled through the screenshots of the conversation with Ben one more time. She had deleted the stupid Lady in Silver account as soon as she had wallowed in the misery of a lost connection. She hadn't thought that Benedict Bridgerton would be such a prick as to unmatch mid-conversation, but the dating apps were a brutal place. Even a good connection with a cute stranger didn't mean much if the next swipe was hotter. And thanks to her silly experiment she didn't even know if he found her attractive or not. The photos had only shown her backside and hair in a bun in that Regency era gown.
Posy still thought he had unmatched by accident. Sophie disagreed. The date had been so close to getting arranged and was getting too real. Perhaps that was why he chickened out. He didn't want something deeper and meaningful. He wanted a fling, casual and sexy, the same as all the other guys on the apps. She had been completely wrong about him in the end.
It had been a great conversation that had its vulnerable moments as well, but ultimately that hadn't mattered to him. He was off to find someone new, someone more his type than her. She was boring enough to discuss academia and turn down a fancy cocktail bar date. She didn't even know how to dance.
Well, she could correct that one thing at least. Her Friday lectures were near a dance studio. She could attend some classes, just for fun. Maybe she'd even meet someone nice there.
Or maybe not. But she had to stop daydreaming about going out with Benedict Bridgerton.