Chapter Text
“I hate you guys.” Lance put his face in his hands as he watched Pidge photoshop a large straw hat onto one of his many shirtless Instagram pictures. She, the computer genius, the tech-savvy gremlin, the insomniac hacker/coder, could make any photoshopped image look absolutely fantastic. And yet, she was purposefully making the image look horrendous. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this to my beautiful face.”
“I would have done it with or without your permission,” Pidge sassed, saving the file as a .png so she could upload it to his new FarmersOnly.com account.
Thirty minutes prior, Lance had been sulking over his failed online dating experiences.
“Motherf…ricker,” Lance, conscious of his mother’s presence in the other room, said. Hunk and Pidge sat in his living room with him.
Pidge didn’t look up from her laptop. “What? Another creep try to message you?”
Lance looked down at his phone screen. “Yeah,” he replied, cringing at the message he was faced with. “I don’t get it. He looked kind of cute, too. But nooo, dude had to ask for nudes.”
Lance felt discouraged by the many failed Tinder matches he had found within the last month. It seemed hopeless—online dating never worked out well for him, and neither did the real life alternative. He was either faced with weirdos, unresponsive matches, or first dates that just didn't... work.
"What could be the problem?" Lance thought aloud, shutting off his phone. "I've tried Tinder, Grindr, eHarmony, OkCupid, ChristianMingle—"
"You tried ChristianMingle?" Pidge interrupted.
Hunk laughed suddenly. "Dude, why ChristianMingle? Isn't that, like, counterintuitive?" He and Pidge exchanged a look, one that Lance was quite familiar with. It was their Lance-is-being-ridiculous-again look.
"I'm desperate!" Lance replied, embarrassed.
"If you're really desperate, you would have gone onto FarmersOnly already," Pidge remarked, her glasses gleaming behind the light of her computer screen. Lance rolled his eyes at her idea.
"There's no way someone from FarmersOnly lives in this part of California." It was silly to even consider.
"Well, you'll never know unless you try, Lance." Hunk, always the optimist, smiled as he said it.
"I'm not even a farmer!"
But now they—despite Lance not even being a farmer—were setting up his FarmersOnly account. "I can't believe we're actually doing this," Lance said for about the sixth time within the span of five minutes. He was glad his mother had left the house to go to the grocery store so that she didn't have to hear her desperate 22-year-old son setting up a dating account on FarmersOnly. "This isn't going to work."
"C'mon, Lance," Hunk nudged him. "Even if it doesn't work, it's still fun to do."
Lance, unable to kill Hunk's vibe, silently agreed. It was kind of fun to see Pidge photoshopping a picture of him. It was definitely fun joking around with his friends. And it was fun to watch as Pidge wrote out his bio for—wait a second.
"Whoa, whoa, what are you writing?"
Lance stared at the screen in horror at the headliner Pidge was writing out.
Any real cowboys/girls looking for a mount? ;)
"Jesus Christ, Pidge! Can you not be so... I don't know, vulgar?"
Pidge turned her head, fingers pausing on her keyboard. She stared back at Lance for a good few seconds before answering. "Should I remind you that this is a dating site for farmers, Lance? Unless... you're looking to date a farmer."
Lance considered it. "...I'm open to it. But I doubt anyone on this site is actually going to be someone I end up dating. So, whatever, go ham on it. I'm gonna get something to drink."
A few milkshakes later, and Lance's new FarmersOnly.com account was completed. His bio entailed his age, 22; height, 5’8; favorite color, blue; sexuality, bi; sign, Leo; and location, Pasadena, CA. Pidge had made it clear that he was seeking both men and women with the things he had written in his bio:
About coolfarmerboi69:
just yer average cowboy lookin for some lovin!! i want me some good boys n gals with reeeaall farmer values ;)
coolfarmerboi69 is looking for:
im very bi so anyone’ll do. (brownie points if ya have a horse)
"Lance, oh shit, you already have a few compatible matches!" Pidge laughed, and Lance had to make sure his ears were working right. He set his milkshake down on the coffee table while Hunk, who had lost interest in setting up the account, continued sipping down the one Lance had made for him.
"No waaaay," he drawled in an awful southern accent, scooting off of the couch to sit beside Pidge on the floor in the area between the couch and the coffee table. Lance squinted at the computer screen, its brightness so low, Lance wondered how in the world Pidge actually saw anything on there. Apparently, Pidge noticed how long it took him to focus his eyes on the screen so she quickly turned the brightness up on the laptop. Lance almost spat out his drink at what he saw.
Three matches already, two of which were female, and the last, a male. Unfortunately, both women were much older than Lance preferred—one being nearly 34 and the other, 29. Lance nearly smacked himself in the face. It wasn’t like he was expecting to actually find someone he was compatible with on this website. The chances of that were below 10%, probably lower. Maybe closer to .001%.
And yet, when Pidge clicked the last profile of the last automated match generated from the site, Lance couldn’t keep his eyes off of the profile picture. The male in question was gorgeous, and Lance found himself wondering what this beautiful boy was doing on such a weird, obscure, farmer website. Don’t judge a book by its cover, he thought to himself, trying to hide the fact that he was very interested in kkogane_ from Pidge. Unfortunately for him, the computer-whizz noticed his trance-like state after looking at the cute boy on the screen. She immediately hailed Hunk away from his phone and started saying something, but Lance didn’t hear it. He was too busy reading kkogane_’s profile.
About kkogane_:
[no information given]
kkogane_ is looking for:
long-term relationship
Age: 24
Height: 5’7½
Favorite Color: Red
Sexuality: Gay
Sign: Scorpio
Location: LA, CA
He stared at the profile. The large EMAIL HIM button called out to Lance. And he, never known to back down when there was something he wanted at stake, clicked it.
Pidge and Hunk may have made fun of him the rest of the night for it, but Lance was glad he had sent an email to kkogane_. In fact, he just about jumped out of his seat every time his phone went off during the poorly-written movie they were watching. This was one of the first times he’d found someone who made his heart go doki-doki just by looking at them. Lance even went as far as to change his profile picture to something not badly-photoshopped by Pidge because he didn’t want this farmer boy to think he was making fun of his culture, or something. (Unfortunately, he couldn’t change his username, so he was stuck with coolfarmerboi69.) Still, he sent an email:
Hello!
Hi kkogane_,
I don’t know if you still use your farmersonly account, but I just recently made one and got matched with you by the website! I am not aware if you are still looking for a long-term relationship, but I just wanted to email you in case you were interested. I’d like to get to know you better, if that’s okay with you!
Best regards,
Lance
Lance hoped it didn’t sound too excited with all those exclamation marks, but it was the only way Lance really knew how to email someone without sounding like an emotionless dickwad.
Lance went back to his Safari browser on his phone and found the tab with FarmersOnly.com. It was still on kkogane_’s profile, so Lance took the opportunity to stare at his picture, analyze it a bit more. He had long black hair, dark eyes, and pale skin. He was wearing a flannel in his picture, for Christ’s sake. How does someone get more cowboy than that?
Lance just about died inside (out of joy) when he got the Gmail notification for Re: Hello! while browsing his Instagram feed. He was almost too nervous to click on the notif. What if he’s in a relationship already? his inner pessimist questioned. What if I’m being catfished?
Re: Hello!
hi lance,
im keith. still looking for a relationship
The reply was so short, and yet, Lance’s heart quickened in pace at the acknowledgement to his message. Better yet, the pretty boy—Keith, as he now knew his name to be—was still single.
Lance quickly typed out a response to this mysterious Keith.
Re: Re: Hello!
Hi Keith!
Looks like we’re in the same boat, then. How has your week been?
The response came almost immediately after he sent the email.
Re: Re: Re: Hello!
are you a farmer
Lance rose a brow, unsure if Keith had just completely ignored his email, or if he had sent that after his first email without reading Lance’s reply. Maybe they had sent the emails at the same time. As he thought this, another email came in, confirming his second theory.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello!
busy. i work most days, but im typically off friday-sunday.
Lance smiled.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello!
Would you perhaps be interested in going out on one of your days off?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello!
are you a farmer
He stared down at the four words, unsure if his reply should be one of honesty or one of deceit. He's really persistent, huh? Lance thought to himself. He didn't know which would be better, saying yes, and possibly offending Keith because it would certainly come back later to bite him in the ass, or saying no, and possibly turning Keith off because he was no country boy. Was it worth the risk of Keith being upset? What if Keith was in the same situation he was in? Just a desperate guy, trying to find a boyfriend, and his last resort was FarmersOnly.com?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello!
I am.
Lord have mercy on his soul.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello!
in pasadena?
“Shit,” Lance swore underneath his breath, loud enough, apparently, for Hunk to glance over at him and ask if everything was okay. He nodded, excusing himself to the bathroom. He didn’t want to be seen panicking over what to say to Keith.
Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to reply, because Keith sent another email within the time Lance was freaking out in the bathroom.
the names of these emails are getting too long
i asked because you dont look like a farmer. no offense.
i've lived in tx for most of my life until recently, so i know what country boys typically look like. not to mention, you type like a city boy. you look like a west coaster, kind of like a surfer? which isnt exactly a bad thing, cause i think youre attractive.
but i can tell you right now that this wont work if youre gonna lie to my face
so are you a farmer or not
Lance sat down on the counter as he typed in defeat.
They are
Ok, I admit it. I’m not a farmer. My family actually comes from Cuba, but I was born in SoCal, so that’s the truth. I just figured that since you’re on FarmersOnly.com, you’d want to date a country boy. And I wanted to be that person, cause I didn’t want to let my only chance at you to slip by just because I don’t know how to milk a cow or plow a field.
I’m sorry I lied. Please forgive me? Uwu
Maybe he had just royally fucked that up. Maybe not. Lance hoped for the latter, but only time would tell. And based by Keith’s previous response times, that moment would be soon. Lance might have been more worried about the email that came through his phone if the email title didn’t make him laugh. A key smash? Really?
asflgjt
it’s alright. tbh im not a farmer either so you aren’t the only one livin a double life
so, about that date? im down for friday night if you are
also did you just uwu me
Cue the huge sigh of relief on Lance's end.
Oeirhjiokjs
Normally I’d point out that you’re being hypocritical by calling me out on my bullshit while doing the same thing, but I’m more interested in this date. Friday night works for me. I can drive out to LA, or you can come down to Pasadena, if you want.
Uwu UwU oWo OwO owo yes I did
Re: Oeirhjiokjs
let’s figure this out over text, im sick of emailing.
Lance’s smile widened as he thumbed out a reply.
Re: Re: Oeirhjiokjs
that works with me ;)