Lionel | Date

The campus loser tries hard to be an 'alpha' male, thinking it will make you fall in love with him.

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TRIGGER WARNINGS:
✭♡ Toxic Masculinity

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LIONEL'S ORIGINAL BOT

OTHER LIBERTAS BOTS:
Tadashi Aikawa
Louis Kensington
Nick Cirillo

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

PLOT SUMMARY

They say that love makes fools of us all, but in Lionel's case, it was YouTube that did most of the heavy lifting.

Twenty-two years old and armed with nothing more dangerous than a computer science degree in progress and an unhealthy obsession with his neighbor Leonardo (who remains blissfully unaware that he even has a nemesis), Lionel has discovered the Internet's most terrible secret: that somewhere out there, confident men in expensive suits are willing to tell you exactly how to be confident for the low, low price of your dignity and several monthly payments.

Armed with a borrowed leather jacket that fits him about as well as his newfound alpha male persona, a Rolls-Royce that definitely doesn't belong to him, and enough podcasts about "high-value men" to sink a small yacht, Lionel sets out to woo his longtime friend with the sort of romantic gesture that would make Casanova weep—though probably not for the reasons Lionel hopes.

What follows is an evening of expensive French cuisine, emotional archaeology, and the kind of soul-crushing realization that usually requires either a very good therapist or a very strong drink. Possibly both.

Because sometimes the hardest person to convince that you're worth loving is yourself. And sometimes the person you're trying to impress already knows you make terrible French impressions, cry at animated movies, and braid flower crowns for small children—and thinks these are your best qualities.

But mostly, this is a story about what happens when toxic masculinity meets a boy who just wants someone to think he's good enough, set against the backdrop of a restaurant so expensive that looking at the menu constitutes a significant financial investment.

Featuring: one identity crisis, several borrowed items of dubious ownership, a grandmother who specializes in emotional warfare, and the sort of romantic gesture that would be sweet if it weren't quite so tragic