MC Fullaschitt- Yeh Boi!

I blame the year 2020. The clock seemed to stop on the world as we knew it and so began a world with no rules or expectations like before. It affected everything: how we shopped, how we socialised, how we worked and how we dated. The lives we recognised and understood made way to new lives which we had to figure out as we went. I was navigating the pandemic affected world the best I could, but what it highlighted to the single person was what isolation truly meant. As a single person I normally diverted myself with nights out, Tinder, work, gym, socialising with friends and spent very little time at home. Suddenly, I found myself housebound, allowed out only for short, Government-approved walks and a virtual world was the only way I could connect with people. Online dating already provided a plethora of opportunities to meet new people from the comfort of my sofa. However, I knew I couldn’t meet up with anyone (covid rules) so it opened the door to chatting to people I normally wouldn’t - enter MC Fullaschitt. We know that texting can expose a lot: illiteracy, social ineptitude, and a lack of understanding that a conversation is perpetuated by each person taking turns to ask questions. We also know it can help mask a lot too, such as how someone speaks, their inflection, pace, tone. It can also lead you to believe that they are smarter, more sophisticated, and more promising than they are in person. I fell pray to this scam. SHOULD’VE SAW IT COMING, RIGHT?! At first, he guised a ‘normie’. He posed as a well-read, well-travelled liberal who shared my interest in art. He was vague about how he earned a living but gave the impression he had just returned from travel before the pandemic struck so was in between things. He didn’t seem too concerned about his situation and I didn’t want to seem square, so politely swallowed all the questions I had about his long-term career prospects. I just hoped and prayed he wasn’t another latte scammer; I’ve had to add a coffee budget line to my monthly financials. BRING MONEY TO A DATE, DUDES!!! Our communication via message was going well. We spent months swapping book recommendations, discussing politics, cultures, and writing. He’d send me funny YouTube links and I send music or films. He was confident about his charm and hit me with all the banter about feeling chemistry yada, yada, yada- CRINGE. As two single people, we checked in on each other during the long winter of the pandemic, keeping each other’s spirits high, but by springtime it had been a while since we had communicated. I guess all the sexy preamble without any sort of endgame in sight made us both a bit disengaged with the whole process. He was clearly quite sexually revved up and on a number of occasions tried to convince me to break the rules to meet him for a sleepover. It didn’t work, I didn’t want to potentially die over a mediocre sexcapade. When I didn’t hear from him I didn’t feel either way about it. We hadn’t ended things badly, he hadn’t been horrible and I managed to save myself some coffee money. By summer the world seemed a more positive place to be. For a few months we had been able to meet some people and slowly but surely the world began to open up and flourish just as the flowers had bloomed. I was woken by the familiar ping of a text. One eye open, I glanced at the screen and there it was - a text from him. I smiled. The text read “ Hey lady, shall we meet for a walk this fine day?” He often used more formal language in a jokey kind of way, like he was a charming Clark Gable-type. I agreed and I was excited. I had lost a few pounds; my health was as good as it had been but I was still no Vogue cover model. I was ready to bring my fine ass to meet him and chat in person as we had chatted by text. I texted back “sure, shall we meet at the beach?” and straight away I got a text back. “Yeah, but I don’t drive so can you pick me up at the station?” FUCK! Please don’t let this be a warning sign. Is he another one of those guys? Thinking the worst but hoping for the best I message him “no problem, see you there!” I arrive at the train station about five minutes early. I have dressed to impress looking just the right amount of casual but smart, arty but not weird. For once my hair hadn’t doubled in size and become frizzy with the heat. Equally pleasing my make-up isn’t melting off my face like a candle next to a fire. Horror make-up SFX not a winner on a date funnily enough. People alight from the train and there is a guy sitting on the bench with a black beanie, no eyebrows and looks like he’s not seen daylight since Dracula freed him from the castle. I had no idea really what my date looked like, so was this him after a year indoors? Did he open the oven and singe his eyebrows off last night? At that, there was a chap at my window, and I saw a face that resembled the photo online. I waved him towards the passenger seat, and he seemed to limp to the other side - LIMPING? HMMMM? He gets in the car confident as you like. He’s wearing a thick gold chain, a white tshirt, baggy jeans and wide,

skater trainers. He’s got some tattoos and is holding a backpack on his lap before he attempts to put on his seat belt. If he had blond hair, I might have called him Marshall. The entire drive to the beach I couldn’t marry up the person I had been texting to the guy sat beside me. He kept finishing sentences with questions tags like “innit?”, ya know what am saying?”, “ya get me?” and “ya hear me?”. WHO THE HELL IS THIS? Did I pick up the wrong guy? Above all I was panicked that I’m not good with cool lingo, let alone RAP chat. I come from the west coast of Scotland, I even get Scots wrong sometimes and that’s supposed to be my mother tongue! We park up and get out to start the beach walk. He starts to do the limp walk thing again and ask him if he has hurt himself. “Naw, man. I’m all good!” No sooner are these words out of his mouth than it occurs to me that it’s deliberate - he’s trying to swagger. OH FFS! We start walking and I try to make some clumsy first date conversation based on what I know of him. I ask him how his writing is going. He just shrugs his shoulders. I try again and ask if he read any of the books I recommended, nope. He tells me he found a job and thanks me for looking over his CV months ago. I ask what he’s doing, and I’m told he’s “making green” and that’s all that matters. They paying him in dollars?

About half way down the beach, the nervous conversation wanes, and we talk about the nice weather until we come to a silent stop. It’s so silent, I can hear the sand crunching under foot. Finally, he tells me about this new idea he has had for a business venture. He wants to write songs for artists to sing. I find out he can play the keyboard a little and the guitar somewhat. I ask him what he has been composing and he bursts into the longest rap verse I have ever heard. It lasted the entire remainder of our walk which was around 20 minutes. I could say it limped along as badly as his swagger but I’ll be kind and say it was a good effort. It was boo at the end of a set and the kiss of death for his music career and our date. We arrived back at our starting point and there was a little taco stand selling cold drinks. He asked if we wanted to get a drink and sit on the bench for a bit and chat. I was thirsty so I agreed, I knew the chat part was a lie. We were dying on our asses to find things to ‘chat’ about. We queued at the taco stand and soon it was our turn. I ordered two cokes and she mentioned she could only take card due to the pandemic. Low and behold, he pulls me to the side “look if you put it on your card and then stop at the ATM, I square you up later” FUCK, AYE YE WILL! We sat down. If I’m being honest, I didn’t find him unattractive. He wasn’t a bring home to the family guy but we could’ve had some fun I thought, well, as long as he didn’t rap to me again. He was a nice enough guy but just nothing like the together person I thought I was speaking to via text. He kept touching my arm and flirting, or so I thought. We sipped our cokes and smiled at each other which confused me. I didn’t know if he was trying to make a move or he was waiting on me to do it or if we were just morons with nothing to say.

We finished our cokes, jumped in the car and headed to then train station. We arrive at the station and I tell him just to be honest about how the date was for him. Arrogantly on my part, I was thinking of a way to let him down gently and offer perhaps a friendship type deal but before I could even say anything he blurts out: “well I don’t need to tell you I don’t fancy you, ye know what I’m sayin’?” Surprised, relieved, offended and amused,

I say :

“GET OUT MY CAR, YE GET ME? FOOL!”

and that as they say was that!