Dated & Rated: A Short Story

Saesha Kukreja
6 min readNov 3, 2022

This post is adapted from my short story called ‘Dated & Rated,’ which was featured in Excalibur. You can check it out here.

Courtesy of Verywell / Alison Czinkota

Blue sparkling eyes.

That’s the only reason I swiped right on this guy. In-person, his eyes are rather disappointing, more of a pale sky blue rather than a bright Cookie Monster blue.

Not that I’m into Cookie Monster or anything. I was always more of a Peppa Pig kid.

I run my hands through my hair, examining his other facial features as he looks down at the menu.

Thin lips. Clean shaven. Dirty blonde hair. He’s not half bad.

He looks up from the menu as if he can tell what I’m thinking. I look away, trying to cover up the fact that I was drooling over him not even a few seconds ago.

But before I can get too embarrassed, the waitress swings by.

“Are you ready to order?” she chirps.

My eyes widened. I hadn’t even glanced at the menu yet.

“I’ll have the salad with the chicken on the side,” I hastily say. The waitress nods.

Score. Every restaurant has a chicken salad.

“I’ll have the same thing,” he pipes up from across me.

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Saesha Kukreja

Biology Major 🔬/ Author of Quaranteen 🖋/ Avid Reader and Bibliophile 📚