Work Text:
"Dating in a small town sucks," complains Louis, throwing his phone down on his bed and staring blankly at the ceiling. Once again, he finds himself scrolling through Instagram, looking at all the people moving on in their lives. Getting jobs that they love finding people to date, get married, and eventually have a family with. He wasn't out in high school, and there weren't any good options, even if he was. Nowadays, he works at a job he hates simply because that is what is expected of him. He pays his bills and acts like a functioning part of society. He comes home from work, reads a book, does homework, or watches the same TV shows repeatedly because they feel like old friends. But he really wants a relationship or even a friendship where he feels safe. Sighing, Lou picks up his phone again, opens the app store, and starts scrolling, looking for a dating app. Finally, he found the one he had downloaded multiple times before, deleted it every time, and downloaded it again. Not expecting to get a different result from the last ten times, Lou waited for the app to finish downloading so that he could create his profile again. He still doubted that he would find someone this time. It was always the same thing: a bunch of thirsty people who really didn't care about anything except for their next booty call. Occasionally, he would find someone who would show potential, only for things to get weird or fizzle out quickly.
Scrolling through his phone, he finds a few pictures that he thinks are suitable and adds them to his profile writing and general statement about how he wasn't looking to be a third, one-night stand or someone's experiment. Posting his profile, Lou starts scrolling through the other profiles, skipping the majority and only liking a handful along the way. Eventually Lou runs out of swipes for the day and calls it a night, plugging his phone in Lou stretches before changing and crawling under the blankets. And hoping to have better luck tomorrow.