Work Text:
The app was called Bottle and it was going to be Vincent’s cause of death.
Not that he had a problem with the app in principle–honestly it was a cute concept. Sending completely anonymous messages out into simulated waters, hoping for a response to come crashing onto your pixilated shores. It was like Chatroulette meets Gilligan’s Island–only with a high powered algorithm helping along messages to the people who would find them the most interesting.
The app was cute. The app was fine.
The problem wasn’t the app directly.
The problem was that Vincent was a underpaid intern, working for the producers of Catfish, sifting through emails from potential show participants, and since that app had gone viral, there had been a flood of emails from Bottle users, seeking help confirming this or that about their anonymous chat partners.
Anonymous being the key word.
Bottle’s management had their user information locked down tight and no amount of “It would be great exposure” and “Don’t you know who we are?” would get them to cough it up. He knew. He’d tried.
But still, tons of hopefuls flooded his inbox with requests he knew he wouldn’t be able to grant. Seeing the app name alone was enough to make him automatically drift the mouse towards the trash button without fully reading the message. There just weren’t enough hours in the day.
He sighed as he opened the message at the top of his inbox from a Georg Nowak. Hopefully this one would be more promising. He needed something good to bring in to the staff meeting at 1.
Dear Nev and Max,
My name is Georg (pronounced George. It’s a family name), I’m 27 years old, and, frankly, I’m terrified.
Vincent leaned in a little closer to his screen. This guy obviously had a flair for the dramatic. That was promising. He read on.
For the past year, I’ve been talking to this girl. This amazing, wonderful, intelligent girl. We started out just talking about books. I’ve never met someone who can talk about the classics like she can–so perceptive without being snobbish. We gradually branched out to talking about other things and it’s been the best experience of my life. She’s kind and attentive and brilliant and I haven’t told her yet but I love her. I’d marry her today if I thought she’d say yes but there’s one problem.
“We’ve never met,” Vincent mumbled to himself, having read some fifty odd emails in the past two hours that had gone along in a similar fashion.
I’ve never met her. You see, we met on this app called Bottle–
“Come on!” Vincent wanted to scream. Finally an email with some real pathos and he had to chuck it in the trash because this poor dude had the misfortune of falling in love through the Fort Knox of messenger apps.
It was a shame for both of them really.
He moved to trash the email but then he stopped. Something made him want to keep reading. Some niggling sense of familiarity. Or maybe he just felt for the guy? Either way, his eyes fell to the next line.
It’s completely anonymous and we never really got around to exchanging names. When you send out a message for the first time, the app automatically fills in the header with “Dear Friend” and, since the beginning, we’ve just been calling each other that. At first it was just a running joke but, truthfully, I’m scared to give her my actual name. She’s talked about meeting up but I always brush it off as a joke even though I’m dying to meet her.
It’s not that I’ve said anything to her that was terribly untrue. Nothing major. She doesn’t think I’m a famous author or a millionaire or anything like that but I’m still terrified because I’m me and she’s perfect.
I want this to work out more than anything but I don’t know what to do.
Please help,
Georg
Vincent sighed. Poor guy. He was so obviously lovesick. He could feel the desperation through the screen. But what could he do? Bottle wasn’t going to change its policy for this one one guy’s inability to face his fears and just talk to this girl in person. And this girl probably wouldn’t appreciate her information being handed out, even if she did want to meet with Georg like he said.
Under the email was a phone number and contact information. He thought about giving the guy a call for a quick, sympathetic, “That’s rough buddy,” but the sight of the address below stopped him.
The sense of familiarity was back in full force. He’d seen that address, or at least a similar one. Not too long ago either. He did a search of his inbox and, finding nothing, expanded the search to reach his trash also. It came back with one response from an Amalia Balash, two weeks earlier.
As he compared the emails, a smile began to spread across his face.
Forget the 1 o'clock meeting. He sent both emails to the printer and grabbed them as he ran out the door. His boss needed to see this now.
Vincent didn’t think his boss was mean. That was too sharp of a word. She was blunt. She was practical. She didn’t like to have her time wasted. Which is why he skipped the pleasantries when he burst into her office, waving the email printouts in the air like a battle standard.
“What do people love to watch more than ridiculous, petty drama?”
“Nothing,” said his boss, flatly, not looking up from her computer monitor.
“OK, right but what do they love to watch almost as much as that?”
She gave him a blank, “Am I paying you practically nothing so you can force me to read your mind?” stare and he figured he should answer his own question and fast.
“Romance. Actual, real life, spin-kiss while snow falls, close-curtain romance.”
“That is a very specific image, Vincent.”
“Just listen,” he said, preparing to read Amalia’s email. Maybe he wasn’t selling the concept right but the email spoke for itself.
Dear Nev and Max,
My name is Amalia Balash and I am in love with the most gentle, sweet, soft-spoken man I’ve never met but I’m sure you already guessed that or else, why would I be writing to you?
We met through the app Bottle, and the connection was instant–instant and deeper than anything I’ve felt before. He loves books, like me. He’s warm and funny and I’ve never been this open with someone in my life–besides the not being able to pick him out of a two person lineup if my life depended on it thing. I like to think that I’d be able to do it. That we’d lock eyes and I’d just know but, the truth is, I don’t have any idea of what he looks like or what his name is or anything like that. It’s the one area where I haven’t gotten complete honesty from him and it worries me.
I don’t care if he’s not as handsome or successful as I think (hope?) he is. If he’s been writing to me sincerely this whole time and he still feels the same way about me when we meet, that will be enough for me. The problem is, I can’t get him to agree to a meeting. At first I thought he was flirting and playing hard to get but it’s clear now that he’s avoiding the subject and I don’t know how much further I can push it.
It was my friend’s idea to write you. With the anonymity of Bottle, I don’t know what you can do, if anything, but maybe he’s a fan of the show and you can convince him to Skype with me or something.
I know this is a longshot but it was just as unlikely that I would randomly meet someone so perfect for me in every way.
Please help me to find my Dear Friend.
Amalia Balash.
“I know we have a no Bottle policy,” Vincent said before his boss has a chance to, “but look at this email we got two weeks before that one. I rescued it from the trash.”
His boss took the paper from him and read, her eyes slightly widening as they skimmed down the page. To someone who didn’t know her, it would have seemed like a mild reaction. It wasn’t.
She held out her hand for the other email and looked at them side by side. Then, she grabbed her phone and started dialing. In the time between dialing the last number and the phone being answered, her demeanor changed completely.
“Hello?” said a slightly confused voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hi!” she said in what Vincent called her “non-threatening” voice that she used when she had to interact with tour groups or small children. “Is this Ms. Balash?”
“Amalia Balash, yes. Who is this?”
“I’m from Catfish: The Show and–”
There was a heartstopping gasp from Amalia so sharp that Vincent heard it and his heart sympathetically skipped a beat. “You got my email?”
“Yes and we’d like to put you on the show.”
“When?”
“How does as soon as possible sound?”
“It sounds–” Her elated response was stopped by indistinct yelling in the background. Then, “I am on break for another three minutes! So you can just wait there until those three minutes run down if you want to report me to Mr.Maraczek.” She let out a sharp breath. “Sorry. My supervisor is an ass.”
“I heard that,” came a man’s faint reply.
“You were meant to,” Amalia hissed before becoming hopeful again. “I have to get off the phone soon. I’m at work. But, you can help me? Really?”
“Really. In fact, we already have some promising leads. Get back to work and I’ll have someone call you later in the week, OK?”
“Yes! I mean, thank you! Thank you so much!” The call disconnected with a happy click if such things could be happy and the executive immediately moved to call Georg, shooing Vincent away with the order, “Dig up everything on these two that you can. Facebook profiles. Instagram. Anything. Everything.”
He nodded happily and ran to do what she asked. This is going to be better than the time that one girl was catfishing her own cousin. Just think. Their addresses were so close. They could be passing each other in the supermarket every day without knowing. They could be neighbors. He laughed at that thought. No. That would be a coincidence too far. But wouldn’t that be something.