Because I fear I have reached the bottom of the barrel.

Actually, that’s not true.

I reached the bottom of the barrel weeks ago. Hinge just handed me a shovel and said, “Keep going.”

So we’re taking a break.

And somewhere in the process of removing myself from the San Francisco dating market, I had a realization:

Dating is literally the housing market.

Think about it.

Imagine there’s a beautiful Victorian for sale in Pacific Heights.

Bay windows. Hardwood floors. Original details. Great light. A little garden. One weird closet nobody can explain. She’s got character.

Lots of people would love to live there.

Of course they would.

That’s not the question.

The question is:

Can you actually buy the house?

Because there are plenty of people walking around San Francisco who would LOVE to own that Victorian.

They cannot buy that Victorian. They cannot get pre-approved for that Victorian. They do not have the down payment for that Victorian. The bank has reviewed their application and respectfully wishes them the best.

And suddenly, dating makes so much more sense.

Someone can really like you and still not have the capacity for the relationship they want with you. Some people are touring homes they cannot afford. Some people are renters.

And there’s nothing wrong with renting!

Rent! Have fun! Get a cute little apartment. Sign a six-month lease. Don’t hang anything heavy on the walls.

But I am looking for homeownership.

And I think I’ve spent entirely too much time accepting applications from people who are clearly looking for a short-term rental.

Some people want an Airbnb. Some people want a weekend rental. Some people want to leave a toothbrush there while maintaining a primary residence elsewhere. Some people “could definitely see themselves buying eventually.” And some people have the emotional equivalent of a 487 credit score and the swagger of an all-cash buyer.

Those are my favorite.

Sir. You have three unresolved situationships and break into a light sweat when someone asks what you’re doing next weekend.

You are not pre-approved.

And YET.

These are sometimes the people who walk through the property with notes.

Have you considered changing the kitchen?

No.

Have you considered being more open concept?

No.

Because this is the part I think we get backwards when we’ve been single for a while…we start looking at our own days on market.

Hmm. Still available.

Should we be concerned?

Maybe I need better photos, lower the price, renovate, be less particular, want less, knock down a few walls, remove all signs of personality and paint the entire interior Agreeable Gray.

Absolutely not.

This is a San Francisco Victorian. There are built-ins. We’re keeping them.

Maybe the house isn’t the problem. Maybe most of the people wandering through the open house were never potential buyers in the first place.

They were browsing, renting, killing time on Zillow.

They really, genuinely loved the house.

They also had $100 in their checking account.

And that’s the thing.

Wanting the house and being able to own the house are two completely different things.

You don’t just need someone who loves the bay windows. You need someone who is actually ready for homeownership.

Because after you get the keys, congratulations!

There’s a mortgage.

Relationships have monthly payments too.

Consistency is a monthly payment. Communication is a monthly payment. Vulnerability is a monthly payment. Repair is a monthly payment. Showing up when it’s inconvenient is a monthly payment. Continuing to choose someone after the novelty wears off is a monthly payment.

A lot of people can afford the open house. Not everyone can afford the mortgage.

And maybe that’s why “Why am I still single?” has started to feel like the wrong question.

Because when I actually think about the people I’ve dated and ask:

How many of them were qualified buyers?

Oh.

Well.

That changes the numbers considerably.

So I’m taking the listing down for 30 days.

Absolutely no applications from anyone “figuring out their dating goals.” Please figure them out. Check your credit. Call a lender. Godspeed.

Although, this is San Francisco. Some of the best places sell off-market anyway.

Maybe someone knows someone. Maybe there’s a chance encounter. Maybe the right buyer was never on Zillow either.

That’s kind of the fun of it.

Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy being the house. Keep the weird closet. Throw open the windows. Let the light in. Play the music too loud. Stop wondering whether someone thinks the wallpaper is too much.

I’ll go to all my bucket list concerts. Drink the dirtiest martinis. Belly laugh with my friends. Sing my heart out. Write. Walk my dog along the beach. Cook delicious meals with my farmers market finds. Build things I care deeply about. Flirt with the physical world.

Maybe I meet someone. Maybe I don’t. Maybe in 30 days I put the listing back up and discover the barrel has undergone a tasteful renovation.

Who knows.

For now, the house is very much alive.

Owner occupied.

My recurring character.

At this point, I feel like every time I announce his return, somewhere an exhausted reader whispers, Jesus Christ, this guy again?

Yes.

This guy again.

Except lately, I’ve been wondering if maybe the next development in the Concert Guy Cinematic Universe is that there isn’t one.

Maybe nothing dramatic happens.

Maybe nobody professes their love in the rain. Maybe nobody gets on a plane. Maybe there is no season finale.

Maybe I just finally let him go.

Which is annoying because I don’t actually want him out of my life.

I just want him out of my head.

This week, I had dinner with one of his good friends. Just the two of us. And we had the best time.

We laughed the entire night. Time disappeared. It was easy and weird and fun and somehow reminded me of hanging out with him.

And I realized I feel this way about so many people I’ve met through Concert Guy.

I like his people, his world, the way they move through life. The music and the adventures and the dinners and the ridiculous stories. There’s an ease there that feels familiar to me.

Which would all be lovely if I weren’t still emotionally entangled with the man who introduced me to it.

His friend and I inevitably started talking about him because apparently even when Concert Guy is not at dinner, Concert Guy finds a way to attend dinner.

And eventually we got onto the subject of Caroline.

Caroline is what we’ll call his best friend.

They’ve known each other forever. They travel together. She gets invited everywhere. She shows up for the hard family stuff. She’s his rock. He is hers. They seem to have built the emotional infrastructure of a small marriage while insisting they are absolutely, positively, definitely just friends.

There is also, and I cannot stress this enough, A LIFE-SIZE PHOTO OF THE TWO OF THEM IN HIS LIVING ROOM.

Apparently he had it made for her as a joke.

She didn’t want it.

So naturally it now lives with him.

Completely normal platonic best-friend behavior. Nothing to see here.

His friend thinks the idea of them ending up together is ridiculous.

I am less convinced.

I’m like, Are we all watching the same movie?

But Caroline has her own romantic life, including a man in Mexico City, and apparently whatever she and Concert Guy have works perfectly well for them exactly as it is.

And maybe that’s the part I find hardest to swallow.

Because I’m not jealous of Caroline in the traditional sense.

I don’t dislike her. From everything I know, she’s great. She’s supportive of him. She’s there when things are hard. She loves him in this enormous, steady, woven into his life kind of way.

That’s beautiful.

I just wish I got to do some of it too.

There. That’s the embarrassing part.

I want the weekends.

I want the trips to visit friends in Washington.

I want the concerts and the stupid jokes and the flights to Mexico City and the Airbnb and wandering around looking for something delicious to eat.

I want more than a Tuesday night or a concert or whatever little pocket of time happens to open.

I want the mundane expansiveness of actually knowing somebody.

I want enough time together that we get bored.

And somewhere along the way, I think I got attached not only to Concert Guy, but to an entire imaginary life adjacent to him.

That’s a dangerous thing to fall in love with because an imaginary life never has to disappoint you.

It has excellent lighting.

Meanwhile, reality has been considerably less ambiguous than I would sometimes like to admit.

He has not chosen a relationship with me.

That’s it.

There are approximately 46,000 additional words I could use to explain the circumstances and the chemistry and the timing and his feelings and my feelings and Caroline and his family and whether he’s scared and what that one conversation meant.

But they all eventually run into the same sentence.

He has not chosen a relationship with me.

And somehow my brain is still like:

Okay, but should we think about him today?

NO.

We actually have several other things on the agenda.

Great. I’ll put him down for 2:30.

Sir, you were not invited here. Go home.

I think about this man almost every day.

Do you understand how irritating that is?

There is someone wandering around in my brain paying absolutely no rent. He has a beautiful corner unit. Ocean views. Hardwood floors. Possibly a life-size poster of Caroline.

And I keep trying to evict him.

The strangest part of having feelings that aren’t being equally lived out on the other side is realizing how much can exist inside one person.

How can I feel this much about something we’re not even doing?

How can I miss experiences we never had?

How can I have an entire emotional ecosystem around a relationship that technically isn’t a relationship?

It’s bizarre.

But I also don’t think it’s particularly rare.

I think a lot of us have had one person who becomes disproportionately large in our internal world.

Not necessarily an ex.

Sometimes that’s almost easier. An ex gives you evidence. There was a relationship. It existed. It ended. You can point to the wreckage and say, There. That’s what I’m grieving.

But what about the almosts?

The recurring characters?

The people you have enough chemistry with to imagine everything and not enough reality with to actually find out?

There is no breakup because there was never quite a relationship.

So where exactly do you put the grief?

I’ve started thinking about cutting the cord.

Not in a light some sage and banish this man from my aura way.

I don’t want to banish him.

That’s the whole problem.

I would love to be his friend.

I think he’s a cool human being. He makes me laugh. I love our shared love of music. I like the person I am around him. I like his friends. I like him.

I don’t want to make him terrible so I can get over him.

I don’t want to create a list of his flaws and read it every morning like the Pledge of Allegiance.

I don’t want to pretend none of it mattered.

I just want to stop being attached to what it could be.

I want to cut the cord between myself and the possibility.

The waiting. The wondering. The tiny part of me that still thinks, But what if we just had one whole weekend?

Because that’s where my brain goes.

Just give us a weekend.

Let us go somewhere. Let us wake up and get coffee and wander around and eat good food and go see music and laugh until our stomachs hurt and have nowhere else we need to be.

Just give me enough time to show him.

Show him what, exactly?

That’s where I catch myself.

Because love isn’t an audition.

I shouldn’t need a weekend to demonstrate why I could be worth choosing.

And I definitely shouldn’t be standing on one side of an emotional boulder yelling,

HELLO?

I’M OVER HERE.

MARCO?

Nothing.

Polo?

Caroline probably has him at a concert.

And I say that with affection.

Mostly.

The truth is, maybe I never get the weekend.

Maybe we never find out what would happen if the boulder disappeared.

Maybe I never understand why there could be chemistry and affection and intimacy and genuine connection and still this enormous invisible no sitting between us.

And maybe understanding it isn’t actually my job.

Maybe my job is to notice what continuing to ask the question is costing me.

Because this isn’t serving me anymore.

That’s the sentence I’ve been avoiding.

Whatever this connection gave me, whatever it woke up in me, whatever joy and music and desire and curiosity came with it, I think I’ve reached the point where holding onto the possibility costs more than the possibility gives back.

And I don’t want to spend another year trying to solve a person.

I want that energy back. I want the mental real estate. I want the part of me that dreams up weekends in Mexico City to be available to actually go to Mexico City.

Maybe even with someone who wants to go with me.

Wild concept.

I want to meet someone and not quietly hold him up against Concert Guy.

I want to experience consistency without mistaking it for a lack of chemistry because my nervous system got really good at finding romance in the question mark.

I want to know what it feels like when there isn’t a boulder.

When nobody has to yell Marco.

When I don’t have to wonder whether someone is thinking about me because he’s texting me to ask what we’re doing Friday.

And strangely, I think letting go might be the only way Concert Guy and I ever actually get to be friends.

Because I don’t want friendship if “friendship” means I take whatever proximity I can get while some secret part of me keeps hoping for a plot twist.

That’s not friendship.

That’s waiting with better branding.

Maybe one day he can tell me he’s fallen madly in love with someone, Caroline or otherwise, and my first feeling will genuinely be happiness for him.

I would really like that.

Not performative happiness.

Not OMG I’m sooo happy for you!!! followed by putting my phone facedown and staring into the middle distance for 45 minutes.

Actual happiness.

Because I do want him to be happy.

I just wanted, for a while, to be the person making him happy.

Those are different things.

So maybe this isn’t the chapter where Concert Guy disappears.

Maybe he keeps showing up occasionally. Maybe we go to another concert someday. Maybe we become actual friends. Maybe we don’t.

I think cutting the cord means I stop needing to know.

It means I release the imaginary weekend.

I release Mexico City, Washington, Caroline, the forensic analysis of why he can give certain pieces of himself there but not here, and the version of him I’ve been carrying around in my future.

Not because he wasn’t meaningful, or I don’t care or that I’m finally ready to declare him an asshole and storm dramatically into my next chapter. He’s not. This would honestly be much easier if he were.

I just don’t want my heart sitting in a waiting room for an appointment that was never actually scheduled.

So Concert Guy can stay a character.

He just doesn’t get to be the plot anymore.

Hinge. Bumble. “Have your friends set you up!” Oh, I’ve asked. At 31, your married friends have approximately two single men left in their extended network. One is 42, lives with three roommates, bartends part time, plays a lot of video games, and is “figuring out his next move.” The other is a 24 year old on their sales team who is apparently “so fun.”

No.

I’m not asking for a six foot four Nobel Prize winner who surfs and rescues puppies. At this point I’d like cool. Curious. Functioning. Has a thing or two going on. Maybe has felt joy before.

A soul.

Apparently we’re adding has a soul to the criteria.

The bar is so low at this point I think we’re going to need a permit to keep digging.

So I’m not saying I’m cursed. I’m just saying if there’s a woman named Moonbeam somewhere in Marin who needs three bay leaves and $175 to remove whatever the hell is happening here, I’d like a consultation.

Because last night I went on a date so bizarre I kept looking behind the espresso machine for Ashton Kutcher.

The funny thing is, I still love meeting people. Maybe THAT is the curse.

Dating apps feel like someone dumped the entire male population into a claw machine and gave me three quarters, but put me across from an actual human and I’m fascinated. I’m always chasing aliveness. I want to find the thing that makes you lean across the table and forget you were trying to be cool. The song you’ve played 400 times. The restaurant you’d drive four hours for with absolutely no guarantee there won’t be a line. The niche obsession your friends have begged you to stop bringing up. Give me one tiny thread of something you love and I’ll pull until we’re somewhere neither of us meant to go.

So when I heard about Known, an AI dating app, I thought: okay. Maybe the robots know where my husband is.

The concept is actually brilliant. You tell Known who you are and what you’re looking for, it does the matching, you each pay $15 to commit to the date, and it chooses the restaurant. No swiping. No planning. Here’s a human. Here’s a restaurant. Godspeed.

And Known knows I’m looking for my actual partner. They know my values, my preferences, what matters to me. I have basically handed this machine my romantic medical records.

Okay, babe. You drive.

And wow. Did she ever.

Known sends us to a cute little French restaurant in San Francisco at 8 p.m. on a Saturday. We both received the restaurant when we matched, so I need to establish that nobody blindfolded this man and released him into a brasserie.

We have known.

I sit down and immediately something is off. He looks around, looks at the menu, puts it down, looks around again, like he has discovered a clerical error and would like to speak with whoever is in charge.

“I usually just get tea on dates.”

“Okay.”

Then, with actual concern: “I hope you’re not ordering dinner.”

I’m sorry?

Who says that?

We have been sitting down for maybe sixty seconds. I haven’t opened the menu. I have not threatened this man with a tasting menu.

Also, sir. Relax. I’m 31. It is 8 p.m. This is basically midnight. I ate hours ago. My ideal date starts at happy hour and has me in bed by 9:30 wondering why I ever agreed to leave the house.

No one is ordering the duck.

“I’m just doing tea,” he clarifies. “I mean, you can get whatever you want.”

Thank you, sir. I was waiting for clearance.

Normally I’d play along. Fine. We’re tea people now. Pour me an Apple Cinnamon Autumn Orchard whatever and let’s see where this goes.

But I have been sitting across from this man for approximately ninety seconds, and my nervous system has already filed an emergency request for something significantly stronger than peppermint.

I don’t need tea. I don’t even need wine. I need the dirtiest martini legally available in California. I need a bartender to look at the olive brine and briefly wonder whether this is medically advisable.

My body has already figured something out that my brain is still buffering.

He, meanwhile, still hasn’t ordered the tea. He’s just looking around unhappily, like his mom dropped him at the wrong summer camp and forgot to come back.

“Do you want me to ask if they have tea?”

“Yes.”

Oh my God.

I turn toward the bartender, who is already looking at us. Of course he is. Bartenders are gods. They know.

“Do you guys have tea?”

He is READY. Mint. Green. Earl Grey. Some apple-cinnamon situation. Beautiful. We have located tea.

My date chooses mint. Crisis resolved.

Then he reminds me, one more time, “You can get whatever you want.”

Oh, babe. I know.

“Can I get the dirtiest martini you have?”

The bartender looks at me. “You want it filthy?”

“Hell yeah.”

Finally. A man at this table understands me.

My date looks horrified.

“I’ve never had alcohol.”

“Ever?”

“Never.”

And I have a brief moment with Known because this keeps happening.

Known. What did I say?

Where in my romantic medical records did I accidentally check PLEASE SEND MEN WHO HAVE NEVER MET A COCKTAIL?

Every man this app seems to send me is sober. Which is wonderful. For them. But at this point I’m beginning to wonder whether I downloaded an AI matchmaking app or accidentally joined an extremely elaborate twelve-step program.

My martini arrives. Cloudy. Freezing. Three olives. Across from me: mint tea.

I take one sip.

Oh, thank God.

Peppermint was never getting me through this.

Somewhere between the tea and my first olive, he starts talking about Known’s AI. He really wants to know what model they use. Apparently he has asked them, and for some mysterious reason customer service has not replied, “Absolutely! Here is the proprietary technology our entire company is built around. Would you also like our passwords?”

Sir. What did you expect? The source code? A PDF called HOW TO RECREATE OUR COMPANY AND SELL IT.pdf?

Interesting.

I file this away.

Then I learn he’s 38 and has never been in a relationship.

Ever.

He works 17 hours a day, six days a week.

“Do you even have time for a relationship?”

“No.”

Sip.

Known.

Baby.

What happened?

You know I’m looking for my life partner and you have sent me a man who has never had a partner and openly does not have time for one.

This isn’t a subtle compatibility issue. This is like telling OpenTable you need a table for two and they book you a dentist appointment.

I would like to see the math.

Then he tells me he grew up in extreme poverty and is now a billionaire.

Wait.

Okay.

Important question.

Do billionaires just… tell you they’re billionaires?

Like, to your face?

I don’t know why, but I always imagined there was a little more mystery around it. Like you find out later and go, Ohhhhh. That explains the boat.

But apparently we’re just saying it.

I’m new here. I don’t know billionaire etiquette.

Anyway. Billionaire. Now you have me.

He’s also built and sold 18 companies before 38. Eighteen. Although, to be fair, if you work 17 hours a day, six days a week, you can probably get a lot done.

Apparently my commitment to eight hours of sleep has really been holding me back.

I tell stories for a living. Hand me “grew up in extreme poverty, built 18 companies, became a billionaire before 38” and every little light in my brain turns on.

There it is.

A story. Finally.

“What was your favorite company to build?”

“I don’t remember.”

Oh?

He built them to sell them. Doesn’t care about them. “It’s all about money. That’s all I care about.”

And just like that, every little light goes back out.

Eighteen companies. Not one story.

His entire career is in Recently Deleted.

Okay. Different door.

What gets you excited? Nothing. Sports? No. Music? No. Art? No. Working out? No.

I’m throwing spaghetti at the human experience and nothing sticks.

At this point, tell me you love clocks. Amazing. What kind? Tell me you have a sourdough starter named Gregory. Incredible. Tell me there’s one dumpling in Berkeley you would cross the Bay Bridge at rush hour for.

I don’t need you to love what I love.

I just want you to like something.

Nothing.

I came looking for a spark and I’m rubbing two sticks together in a rainstorm.

We’re maybe ten minutes in when, out of nowhere, he goes, “I don’t like anyone here.”

Okay.

Here where?

The restaurant? San Francisco? America? Earth?

Because I have known this man for approximately the length of a YouTube video and suddenly we’ve entered his State of the Union.

He tells me he doesn’t relate to people in America, doesn’t like the culture, doesn’t like the people. Then somehow we arrive at white people.

Doesn’t like them either.

Interesting.

Mostly because there is currently one sitting directly across from him.

And listen, I only gave Known four photos, but I thought this particular information had made it through.

So now I’m genuinely curious. Maybe he grew up somewhere else. Maybe there’s an entire life experience here I know nothing about.

“So… where did you grow up?”

“Cupertino.”

Oh.

Then he makes sure I know Apple is from there.

Yes. I know.

I also grew up in the Bay Area.

This has still not cleared anything up.

Then he looks around the restaurant like it has personally offended him. “This place is disgusting. Everyone here thinks too highly of themselves. I grew up poor. I don’t go to places like this.”

And I’m sitting there trying to reconcile this with the fact that approximately two minutes ago he told me he was a billionaire.

I’m losing the plot.

I look around to see what everyone else has done to deserve this review. A woman is eating a salad. A couple is sharing a bottle of wine and fries.

Nobody has declared themselves king.

It appears to just be… dinner.

So let me understand the geography here. You grew up in Cupertino. You live in Russian Hill. You are wearing a Patagonia puffer. You are currently sitting in a French restaurant in San Francisco, on a date with a white woman, explaining that you don’t like anyone here.

Sir.

Where exactly did you think you were going tonight?

Dating is incredible.

Then, finally, I discover something that lights him up.

My leather jacket.

He finds out I lived in New York, looks at the jacket like he has cracked the final piece of evidence has just fallen into place and goes, “Oh my God. THAT’S why you have this jacket.”

No.

People have leather jackets outside New York City.

This is not an indigenous textile.

But suddenly he is fascinated. Is it real? What kind? Where did I get it? What city did I buy it in? He reaches over and rubs the sleeve between his fingers.

Okay.

A few minutes later, he needs to feel it again.

Honestly?

Thrilled for her.

I have spent this entire date trying to locate one flicker of enthusiasm in this man and apparently I have been wearing it.

My leather jacket has gotten further with him than I have.

Then come some oddly specific questions. What do my parents do? What did I do before my current business? Exactly where did I live in New York?

“What cross streets?”

My cross streets?

Why?

We’re fifteen minutes in. This man does not know what music I like or what makes me laugh, but he knows my mother’s occupation, the coordinates of my former Manhattan apartment, and has completed a multipoint inspection of my outerwear.

I feel less like a date and more like I’m being entered into a CRM.

Which, considering the AI investigation, is becoming increasingly concerning.

Then he says, “Maybe we should pretend we’re not on a date. You’re just getting to know me.”

Okay?

I’m unsure what that even means, but sure.

He stares at me.

Nothing.

So I ask another question because apparently conversation, like tea, has been assigned to my department.

Eventually he asks, “Do you think I’m difficult to connect with?”

And I laugh.

My nervous system has simply run out of approved responses.

I have tried business, childhood, Cupertino, hobbies, art, New York, jackets. I have acquired tea. I have provided historical Manhattan coordinates.

All of this has happened in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Friends.

“Am I difficult?”

“Yeah. You’re incredibly difficult to connect with.”

There.

We found something we agree on.

And suddenly his face changes. It is the first time all night I see something really light up in him.

Unfortunately, it’s anger.

Not the spark I was looking for, but technically, we found one.

My body knows immediately.

We’re done here.

I look toward the bartender. He clocks me before I practically move.

Of course he does.

“Can we get the check?”

My date looks at me. “Oh. It’s that bad?” In a very threatening tone.

I respond “honestly, I’m just not feeling a connection, and I don’t want to waste your time.”

He looks genuinely stunned.

“No one has ever done this before.”

Left?

A date?

I don’t know what to respond as I sit there waiting for the check. Then he asks if I’m laughing at him. Mocking him.

“No. I’m not laughing at you.”

Meanwhile I do laugh a little then because my nervous system has officially lost access to every other emotion.

And suddenly that question I filed away with the AI conversation comes flying back.

Wait.

Never had a girlfriend. Works 102 hours a week. Doesn’t have time for a relationship. Barely asks me anything that isn’t data collection. Keeps asking me to pretend we’re not on a date. But arrived deeply interested in Known’s AI model.

Oh my God.

Maybe this genuinely isn’t a date. Maybe I’m the demo. Maybe I downloaded Known thinking the AI would vet men for me, and this man downloaded Known because he wanted to vet the AI.

I thought I was the customer. Maybe I’m the focus group.

I can practically see the spreadsheet:

USER CONSUMED MARTINI. LOCATION DATA: INCOMPLETE. JACKET: MATERIAL UNCONFIRMED. SUBJECT REPORTS “DIFFICULT TO CONNECT WITH.” SESSION TERMINATED. AI MODEL: STILL UNKNOWN.

Known thought it sent me a match.

Maybe it accidentally sent itself a bug report.

The check arrives, and I can practically see him doing the math. Mint tea. Filthy martini. And listen, I know it’s hard out here for the billionaire.

Before he can say anything I put my card down and say “I’ll pay for mine.”

He somehow looks even more surprised.

“Really?”

Really.

I am not getting trapped in a forensic accounting investigation over olive brine.

Martini. Tax. Tip.

Done.

My financial relationship with this man has officially concluded.

Twenty seven minutes. Butt in seat to door.

The second I get outside, my whole body is vibrating. I want to scream, cry, throw up and laugh at exactly the same time. Then the laughter wins. Because what the hell just happened?

Twenty seven minutes ago, I walked through that door wondering whether the robots knew where my husband was.

Now I’m standing on a San Francisco sidewalk having escaped a so called billionaire who may have been conducting market research.

In between, I helped him order mint tea.

I have had relationships unravel with less plot. And somehow the city is completely normal. Cars go by. People walk into restaurants. A couple holds hands. Somewhere inside, someone is probably ordering the duck.

Nobody knows I just lived an entire episode of Punk’d before they finished their first appetizer.

And honestly? I kind of love that. Life is so wonderfully weird.

You leave your house thinking maybe you’re going to meet someone you could fall in love with, and twenty seven minutes later you’re standing on a sidewalk wondering whether you need a therapist, a witch, or another martini.

Thankfully, my friends had the next martini waiting for me up the block.

And no, I’m not giving up.

I still love love.

I don’t want perfect. I want alive.

And somewhere my person is living his weird little life too. Maybe he’s cooking dinner. Maybe he’s out with friends. Maybe he’s currently sitting across from someone thinking, surely this cannot be my wife.

I love that.

Two whole lives taking wrong turns, sitting across from wrong people, ordering completely different beverages.

And then one day, somehow, they meet.

Boy, do I have stories for him.

And here’s the weird part: it felt incredible.

If you read the last chapter of this particular romantic circus, you know someone from my past recently wandered back into my present. Almost two years ago, I was the one who left. He was ready for something I wasn’t ready to receive, and I hurt him. Then almost two years of life happened. Long enough to become different people. Short enough to still know someone’s laugh.

When we found each other again, neither of us pretended this was a platonic archaeological dig. There was attraction. Curiosity. History sitting quietly at the table with us, pretending not to listen. We went into it open to the possibility of something, without needing to know what that something was.

I expected it to be nice. This was my first mistake.

It was magic. Not fireworks. I’m increasingly suspicious of fireworks. They’re loud, everyone stares at them, and five seconds later you’re standing in smoke. This was quieter. Sneakier. The kind of magic you don’t realize is happening until you look at the clock and several hours of your life have disappeared.

We started out in the world, catching up over dirty martinis that were somehow not dirty enough for either of us, which immediately felt like important compatibility data. There is something surreal about sitting across from someone whose expressions you remember while realizing you have almost two years of their life missing. I knew the face. I knew the laugh. I didn’t know the person wearing them anymore.

And I wanted to.

Later, we wandered into a cheese shop, which is apparently where all great modern love stories go to acquire provisions. We bought crackers, smoked toffee bark so good I would like it included in my last will and testament, and a cheese so aggressively stinky it felt personal. Then we went back to his place, made another dirty martini, and debated shaken versus stirred with the seriousness of a constitutional hearing.

He announced that we were having a listening party.

This is where the night got me.

We sat on the couch with our martinis and our tiny feast and started passing music back and forth. Except neither of us could let the other person finish a song because every song reminded us of another one that suddenly felt critically important for the other person to hear. Wait, do you know this one? No, no, no, listen to THIS. Oh my god, you know them? It was less a listening party and more two tiny DJs fighting for custody of the Bluetooth.

There is something strangely intimate about playing someone a song you love. You pretend to listen with them, but really you’re watching their face like you’ve just handed them a small piece of your internal organs and would appreciate a Yelp review.

Then he mentioned seeing an artist a few months earlier. I stopped him. I’d been there too. Then another artist came up. Same thing. We started comparing dates, then where we’d been standing, and somehow, during the almost two years we hadn’t spoken, we had been at the same concerts multiple times. Not just in the same building. On the same side of the room. Feet away from each other without knowing it.

That did something to me.

All that time we had been off living completely separate lives, becoming people the other didn’t know, and every once in a while those lives had apparently wandered into the same room and stood beside each other. Same music. Same night. Same little pocket of the universe.

Just not yet.

And now we were on a couch eating cheese that smelled like a dead foot and tasted incredible, passing songs back and forth and laughing until our guts hurt. The kind of laughter where your body stops cooperating, where you’re trying to finish a sentence but nothing is coming out, and now you’re laughing because you’re laughing and whatever the original joke was has been dead for three minutes.

I remember looking at his face. His smile. Seeing it move in front of me for the first time in almost two years and having this little internal recognition of, Oh. There you are.

Except there was so much I didn’t know.

Almost two years of mornings I hadn’t seen. Songs I’d never heard. Heartbreaks and victories and boring Tuesdays and all the tiny, unremarkable moments that quietly turn someone into a different version of themselves. I knew his laugh. I didn’t know his life.

Familiarity and mystery sitting in the same chair.

And instead of making me nostalgic for what we had been, it made me ravenously curious about who we were now. I wanted more. Not forever. Not a five year plan. We’d had a few martinis and eaten foot cheese. Let’s relax. I just wanted more time. More stories. More songs. Another night.

At some point, the listening party became considerably less about listening. The martinis were abandoned, the music kept playing somewhere in the background, I ended up in his clothes, and eventually we were tangled up together with considerably fewer clothes between us.

And then I kissed him.

God.

I had forgotten what it feels like when kissing someone doesn’t feel like an activity you’re doing so much as a place you’ve gone. Our lips met and the room seemed to lose its edges. The cheese shop, the martinis, the almost two years, whatever song was still playing, all of it went soft around us. It felt like we’d slipped through some hidden trapdoor in the evening and landed somewhere outside of time.

It wasn’t frantic. That was what surprised me. It was warm and consuming and strangely familiar, like my body had recognized something before the rest of me caught up. You know those kisses where some tiny portion of your brain remains annoyingly employed, wondering where your hand should go or what your hair looks like or whether you’ve now been kissing for an objectively strange amount of time? This wasn’t that.

I disappeared into it. Or maybe I became completely present. I’m not sure there’s much difference.

For a while, there was this tiny world that seemed to exist only where we met. I’ll leave the rest where it belongs, between the two people who were there, except to say nobody left that evening confused about whether the chemistry was real.

And somewhere inside all that closeness, I heard myself say something I had never said to a man before: “I’m not having sex with you unless you’re my boyfriend.”

It just came out. No apology. No nervous little laugh afterward. No emergency press conference from the Department of Please Still Like Me. I wanted him, very much, and I still belonged completely to myself. Both things could exist in the same bed.

Later, I would find out that sentence scared him. And some tiny part of me thought, good. Not because I wanted him to be scared. Because I meant it. Because the kiss could carry me somewhere else without carrying me away from myself.

I was proud of the woman who said it. I still am.

He wanted me to stay that night. Really wanted me to stay. And God, I wanted to. There was a version of the evening where I could see myself doing exactly that, crawling back into bed and letting this little world we’d made spill into morning.

But something in me said no.

Not a panicked no. Not the old alarm bells. Just a quiet tug underneath all the wanting that said, Go home.

So I did.

Nothing had shifted yet. That matters. I didn’t leave because I felt him pulling away or because I wanted to beat him to the door. When I left, the night was still beautiful. He wanted me there. I wanted to be there. I went home carrying the delicious assumption that there would be more.

It wasn’t until the next morning that the weather changed.

Emotional weather is strange like that. There’s rarely thunder. Nobody announces the cold front. Sometimes the words barely change at all. You just wake up and somehow the warmth that was sitting between two people twelve hours earlier has moved offshore.

I felt it before I understood it.

So I asked.

And eventually he told me the truth. He couldn’t do this again. The first time around, I had hurt him more deeply than I understood. He had already lived through losing me once, and however beautiful it had been to find each other again, opening that door meant accepting the possibility that I could hurt him again.

To him, it wasn’t worth the risk.

That word lodged itself in me.

Risk.

I kept turning it over like a pebble in my pocket. Not because I thought he was wrong. That was the annoying part. I understood him. Pain has an incredible memory. Touch a hot stove once and your body becomes an excellent historian.

But what exactly are we protecting ourselves from when we decide something isn’t worth the risk?

Pain, obviously. Rejection. Loss. The spectacular inconvenience of letting something matter and then discovering we don’t get to keep it. Completely reasonable.

But isn’t almost everything beautiful hiding somewhere behind that same door?

You don’t get intimacy without risking rejection. You don’t get love without creating something you could lose. You don’t get to be known without showing someone parts of yourself they could misunderstand. You don’t get wonder without admitting you have absolutely no idea what happens next.

Even hope is a risk.

And suddenly I could see the strange symmetry of us. Almost two years ago, something between us had felt too big to me, and I left. Now we had somehow traded places. I was looking at uncertainty and thinking, What if? He was looking at it and thinking, I remember.

Neither of us was wrong.

But I kept wondering whether we had invented a false choice. Surely there was some little patch of earth between all and nothing. A walk. Coffee. Dinner. One more listening party. Enough room for two people to say, I have no idea what this is. Do you want to be curious with me?

No promise that nobody gets hurt. Just enough courage to find out.

Maybe that’s what fascinated me about risk. We talk about the danger of feeling too much, but almost never about the danger of feeling nothing. What about the things we never get to know because we were so busy making sure they could never hurt us?

I sat with that until it got heavy.

I had all this feeling inside me with nowhere to go. His smile. The songs. The laughter. The sadness of finally understanding how deeply I had hurt him. The strange ache of realizing two people can stand inside the exact same beautiful thing and have their bodies translate it in opposite directions.

Mine said, Come closer.

His said, Remember.

So I had another choice. I could respect his decision, tuck everything neatly back inside myself and walk away looking wonderfully composed. Very chic. Very mysterious. Very emotionally constipated.

Or I could say the true thing once.

Not to convince him. Not to present Exhibit A: The Stinky Cheese before the Supreme Court of Romance. Not because vulnerability is some clever little lever you pull to make somebody choose you.

I just couldn’t stand the idea that fear of looking foolish would be the reason I left something true unsaid.

So I wrote him.

And wrote.

And wrote.

It was long. Not so much a text as a small novella delivered via iMessage.

I told him I couldn’t get him off my mind. I told him what kept returning wasn’t even the physical closeness. It was his face across from mine, seeing his smile again, laughing until our guts hurt, all the songs I still wanted to send him. I told him I understood his hurt. I told him I was sorry. I told him I wanted more time. And I told him I couldn’t stop wondering whether some things might be worth a little risk.

Then, at 9:30 at night, I hit send.

It felt like jumping out of an airplane without knowing whether the parachute on my back had been packed correctly. There was no guarantee he’d understand. No guarantee he’d respond. Certainly no guarantee he’d change his mind.

I jumped anyway.

And then I passed out on my couch with every light in my apartment still on.

Completely unconscious.

Which is objectively hilarious. I had just committed one of the most emotionally exposing acts of my adult life, and apparently my nervous system responded with, Great. We have concluded operations.

I thought I’d spend the night staring at my phone like it contained nuclear launch codes, checking for three dots and rereading my message until one innocent adjective suddenly seemed capable of ruining my life. Instead, lights blazing, phone somewhere, me horizontal.

I didn’t realize how tired I was until I put it down.

That’s the thing about carrying something heavy for too long. Sometimes when you finally drop it, you don’t immediately feel lighter.

First, you feel how exhausted you were from carrying it.

The next day, he answered.

He had felt it too. The laughter. The tangents. The songs. The night. It was real. I hadn’t imagined it.

And his answer was still no.

Of course it hurt. There is no amount of personal growth that turns rejection into a spa treatment. I wanted another answer. I wanted another night. I wanted more time.

But underneath the disappointment was something I didn’t expect.

Peace.

Because I didn’t regret jumping. Not even a little.

And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.

Somewhere along the way, I had started believing the value of vulnerability depended on what it got me. Tell someone how you feel and they feel the same way? Brave. Tell someone how you feel and they still say no? Humiliating. Jump and land somewhere beautiful? Worth it. Jump and get hurt? Should’ve stayed in the plane.

Maybe we’ve got that completely backwards.

Maybe the measure of a risk isn’t whether it gives us the outcome we wanted. Maybe sometimes the point is simply that we were willing to be there for our own lives.

I wouldn’t give that night back. And I wouldn’t unsend the text.

I got to feel all of it. How fucking lucky is that?

The butterflies. The wanting. The ridiculous electricity of looking at another human being and feeling the rest of the room disappear. The gut-busting laughter. The songs that suddenly belong to someone. Even the ache.

I think I spent a long time believing emotional safety meant learning how not to get hurt. Now I think it might mean knowing I can let something touch me completely and trust myself with whatever comes after.

Because the parachute was never his answer.

The parachute was me.

I thought I was jumping and hoping another person would catch me. I wasn’t. I was discovering that I trusted the woman jumping.

The woman who could be swept into another universe by a kiss and still hear her own voice inside it. Who could want someone deeply and still say no to what she didn’t want. Who could hear that she’d hurt someone without running from the shame of it. Who could ask for more and respect the answer when it was no. Who could put her heart on the table without making somebody else responsible for keeping it beating.

I thought I had lost that woman somewhere along the way. That gooey, inconvenient part of me that notices someone’s smile and assigns songs to people and gets absurdly delighted by tiny things and feels everything with the volume turned slightly too high.

Maybe I had confused healing with hardening.

Maybe healing didn’t make me less sensitive. Maybe it made me safe enough to be sensitive again.

There she was. Laughing with her whole body. Wanting something without disappearing inside the wanting. Saying what she meant. Letting something matter without demanding to know how it ended first.

Maybe some people are great loves. Maybe some are intersections. Maybe some arrive at exactly the right moment to hand you a part of yourself you didn’t realize you’d misplaced. I don’t know enough about the universe to pretend I understand its filing system.

But I don’t want to measure every beautiful experience by whether I get to keep it.

Something can end and still have been wildly worth having. A person can crack something open in you without being the person who gets to stay and live there.

If I could go back to that night knowing exactly where this particular story would land, I’d still go. I’d order the martini and argue about shaken versus stirred. I’d buy the cheese that smelled like death and eat an irresponsible amount of smoked toffee bark. I’d steal the Bluetooth. I’d kiss him until the room lost its edges. I’d listen to the quiet voice that told me when it was time to go home. I’d say the thing that scared him.

And I’d send the obscenely long text.

I’d jump.

Because I understand something now that I didn’t when I was standing at the airplane door.

The parachute was never the promise that I wouldn’t get hurt.

The parachute was knowing that if I did, I wouldn’t abandon myself on the way down.

And maybe that’s the kind of faith I believe in now. Not certainty that everything I want will eventually be mine, or that every almost love is secretly waiting for the universe to circle back and finish the job.

Something quieter.

The willingness to let something beautiful touch me without requiring it to stay forever to prove that it mattered.

Because somewhere on the way down, I found someone I honestly thought I’d lost.

Me.

Then I panicked.

Funny how quickly we mistake unfamiliar for unsafe.

I’d spent years believing love was supposed to feel like trying to merge onto a freeway with no onramp - fast, loud, and slightly life threatening. Then this man showed up, and it felt like pulling into an empty driveway. No chase. No guessing. No emotional escape room. Just, “I really like you.”

Turns out peace can feel suspicious when chaos has been your native language.

So I left.

I told myself it wasn’t the right time. Maybe it wasn’t. But if I’m honest, I wasn’t rejecting him. I was rejecting the version of myself that would’ve had to believe someone could actually choose me without making me audition first.

Two years later, after therapy, heartbreak, life, and the kind of healing that isn’t glamorous - the kind where you realize your taste in unavailable people wasn’t chemistry but pattern recognition - I stumbled across him again on Hinge.

Apparently the universe enjoys reruns. We reconnected, and something strange happened. It didn’t feel like meeting someone. It felt like opening a book I’d dogeared years ago. My hands remembered where the pages bent. My heart remembered characters my head had almost forgotten.

That’s the dangerous thing about reconnecting. You don’t start from zero. Your nervous system quietly skips ahead.

The date was magic. Not fireworks - fireworks are loud. This was candlelight, the kind that makes everything softer. We laughed until our cheeks hurt. We traded playlists. We wandered through conversations instead of performing them.

At one point he smiled and said, “I really want to see you again this weekend. Maybe Saturday or Sunday?”

For the first time in a very long time, hope didn’t knock. It let itself in.

The next day I texted him. Not because I was chasing him, but because he’d already extended the invitation.

“Hey, my weekend’s looking kind of crazy, but I’d love to see you Saturday night if you’re still around.”

His reply came back: “My weekend’s packed, but I’d love to try and make it work. Just hard to know where.”

I’m sorry…Didn’t we literally make these plans yesterday?

And just like that, every version of me I’d spent years trying to outgrow came sprinting down the hallway.

Here’s what nobody tells you about healing. Your old wounds don’t kick the door down. They use your spare key. They walk in wearing your voice. They don’t scream, “He’s leaving.” They whisper, “You’ve seen this movie before.”

Fear is persuasive. It never introduces itself as fear. It introduces itself as certainty. So there I was, holding one text message like it was a weather forecast for the rest of my life, trying to predict climate from one cloud.

The cruelest part of early dating isn’t rejection. It’s narrative. Your brain becomes a Netflix producer with an unlimited budget. One vague sentence and suddenly it’s greenlit three seasons of a show that doesn’t exist.

Hope is even worse. Hope is an interior designer. She doesn’t ask if you’ve bought the house. She’s already ordering linen curtains, choosing backsplash tile, wondering where the Christmas tree will go.

Reality is still circling the block looking for parking.

Maybe that’s why ambiguity hurts so much. Not because ambiguity is painful, but because it walks into a home your heart has already started decorating and starts covering the furniture with drop cloths.

Maybe that’s the thing about second chances. People love to say, “If it’s meant to be, it’ll come back.” What they don’t tell you is that when it comes back, it rarely comes back alone.

It brings the old versions of both of you with it. The woman who couldn’t receive love. The man who learned to brace for it to disappear. They don’t knock. They quietly slip into the room and start answering questions nobody asked.

Maybe his schedule genuinely changed. Maybe nothing happened at all. Or maybe reconnecting with someone whose story once ended in heartbreak is stranger than anyone tells you. You spend the whole evening remembering why you found each other…and the next morning remembering why you lost each other.

Heartbreak doesn’t always leave walls behind. Sometimes it leaves echoes. You hear an old goodbye in a brand new hello.

I don’t know.

And maybe that’s the most uncomfortable part.

Healing teaches you to stop chasing certainty, but nobody tells you what to do with the silence while you’re waiting for clarity. So your nervous system starts rummaging through old memories like they’re legal precedent.

“Remember the last time someone changed their mind? Remember how you didn’t see it coming? Remember what happened when you trusted someone?” It mistakes memory for prophecy.

Two years ago, I was the one who ran from someone who felt safe. This time, one vague text made me want to run all over again. It’s the same dance, just different choreography.

I’ve realized I can survive almost any truth. It’s the stories I write in its absence that undo me.

I don’t need perfect communication. I don’t need constant reassurance. I don’t need someone to promise me forever after one beautiful night. I just need honesty.

If you’re busy, tell me you’re busy. If you’re scared, tell me you’re scared. If reconnecting with me stirred up something neither of us expected, tell me. I’d rather sit with an uncomfortable truth than build a heartbreaking fiction by myself. Because when people stop telling each other the truth, fear volunteers to translate. And fear has never once translated love correctly.

Maybe that’s what emotional safety actually is. Not finding someone who’s never scared. Finding someone who’s willing to let you into the room where the fear is happening.

Maybe love doesn’t fall apart when two people get scared. Maybe it falls apart when fear becomes the only one doing the talking.

Which, for the record, is incredibly rich coming from the woman who literally ended this the first time because someone liked her too much.

Growth is humbling.

It turns out becoming emotionally available was only half the work. Believing someone else might be, too, is the other half.

…

Well.

That wasn’t the text I thought I was opening tonight.

Remember the former Mormon?

The one where we somehow turned ordering appetizers into a game.

Yeah.

Him.

A couple days after our date, he texted me.

Not because I texted him.

Because he texted me.

He wanted to know when he got to beta test something I’ve been quietly building.

Then he started asking so many follow up questions.

Did I build it myself?

Who was helping?

How long had I been working on it?

The kind of questions that don’t feel like someone making conversation.

The kind that make you think,

“Oh… I think this person actually likes me.”

So I asked about his week.

He told me he’d been putting out fires at work.

I asked what kind.

And after a while I thought,

Okayyy, buddy… are we doing this or are we conducting the world’s longest post-date interview?

I hate texting.

If we’re going to keep talking, I’d rather just see you.

So I said,

“When the smoke clears… want to go on another adventure next week?”

And somewhere in there, I told him I hoped he found time for one of his famous baths.

Which sounds completely unhinged without context.

But he’d spent a solid 15 minutes on our date explaining the art of the perfect bath, and apparently my brain decided,

We’ll be keeping that.

Apparently, I collect tiny details about people the way some people collect fridge magnets.

The story behind the scar on their elbow.

The weird way they peel pomegranates.

The fact that they approach a bath with the level of commitment most people reserve for Thanksgiving dinner.

I don’t know why my brain does this.

It just quietly decides,

“This feels important.”

Then…

That text.

And here’s what fascinates me.

Not that he wasn’t interested.

That part happens.

What’s fascinating is how quickly my brain became absolutely convinced it knew why.

Maybe I talked about my dad too much.

At one point he’d asked what inspired the thing I’ve been building.

So I told him the truth. That it started after my dad died.

Let’s be real, there really isn’t a breezy way to work that into a first date.

“So what inspired you?”

“Profound grief.”

Cute.

Maybe that was it.

Maybe I got too excited talking about what I’m building.

Maybe I asked too many questions.

Maybe I should’ve matched his enthusiasm for PDA.

Maybe my body wasn’t skinny enough.

Or maybe it was too curvy.

Maybe I wore the wrong shirt.

Maybe…

Maybe…

Maybe.

It’s actually incredible how fast the human brain can manufacture certainty from absolutely no evidence.

Because here’s the thing.

He never said any of that.

He didn’t say I overshared, was too intense, too emotional, wasn’t attractive or that I’d done anything wrong.

He said one thing.

“I don’t think we’re compatible.”

And somehow my brain heard,

“Congratulations. You have been selected for a full forensic investigation of your entire personality.”

Honestly…

What a wild thing we do to ourselves.

The funny part is, after spiraling for a good twenty minutes, another thought showed up.

He might be right.

We’re probably not compatible.

I love sharing a bottle of wine over dinner.

I love lingering over omakase, never quite knowing what beautiful bite is coming next.

I love ordering dessert when I’m already full because life is too short to skip warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream melting over the top.

He doesn’t drink.

He’s vegetarian.

He doesn’t like dessert.

Neither of us is wrong.

But those tiny things become a life.

They’re Tuesday nights.

Vacations.

Celebrations.

The rituals that quietly become twenty years together.

So maybe…

He was right.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because somewhere between turning appetizers into a game…

And making out with a total stranger at the corner of a busy intersection like no one was watching…

I remembered something I’d forgotten.

How wonderfully magical life is…

That one person you’ve just met…can suddenly become the most interesting part of your Saturday.

That you can spend hours wanting to know just one more thing about them.

That a city you’ve walked through a hundred times…can somehow feel brand new.

Maybe that’s why his text hurt.

Not because I lost him. We barely knew each other. It hurt because, for about twenty minutes…everything I loved about myself became evidence against me.

For twenty minutes…

I looked at all of it and thought,

Maybe that’s why.

Then I had another thought.

…

Or maybe…

Those aren’t the reasons we weren’t compatible.

Maybe they’re just the reasons I’m me.

And maybe…one day someone will sit across from me…completely delighted by the very things I was about to apologize for.

And I have to say…

I like that ending much better.

Not tequila.

Vulnerability.

It’s the one where you wake up the next morning wondering if, somewhere between the laughter and the late night conversations, you accidentally left your heart somewhere everyone else could see it.

Concert Guy is back.

I know.

I was hoping the writers would give us at least three episodes before bringing back the recurring character, but apparently Olivia Dean had other plans.

If you know me, you know I’ve been trying to get tickets to this concert for months.

Then somehow…

I’m not just at Olivia Dean.

I’m in a suite at Chase Center.

Watching one of my favorite artists with someone who, somehow, keeps wandering back into my story.

The whole night felt… easy.

That’s what surprised me most.

I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

I wasn’t wondering if I was saying the right thing.

I was just… there.

Talking to people.

Laughing.

Finding myself in a twenty-minute conversation with his company’s owner’s mom about theater because, apparently, I can find a Broadway conversation almost anywhere.

Every few minutes he’d wander over with someone new.

“Lily, you have to meet them.”

“This is Lily, she’s an incredible soul singer.”

Every introduction somehow circled back to that.

There was something unexpectedly tender about watching someone introduce you through the thing they admire most about you.

Not because it proved anything.

Just because it made me feel seen.

At one point he quietly mentioned that he doesn’t usually bring women he’s seeing to work events.

Which somehow answered absolutely nothing.

If anything, it made everything feel a little more mysterious.

Then the night did what nights with him always seem to do.

It changed shape.

He had another concert to get to.

Another friend to see.

Another place he’d already promised he’d be.

Before he left I remember saying,

“If you’re bouncing around later, let me know. I’m probably going out too.”

I don’t even know what I was hoping for.

Not some grand romantic movie ending.

Honestly…

I think I just wanted the day to keep going.

When we first met, I thought this was going to be easy.

A concert buddy.

Someone to text when another impossible ticket somehow appeared.

Someone to nerd out over music with.

That felt simple.

Contained.

Safe.

But somewhere between all these shows…

something quietly shifted.

I realized that if one day there were no concerts left…

no impossible tickets…

no suites…

no backstage passes…

I’d still want to see him.

It could be a beautiful beach in Hawaii.

A McDonald’s parking lot.

An alley behind the venue after everyone else had gone home.

The place had quietly stopped mattering.

I wasn’t looking forward to the concert anymore.

I was looking forward to who I’d get to experience it with.

Sometimes intimacy has absolutely nothing to do with taking someone’s clothes off.

Sometimes it’s simply realizing you’d be just as happy if none of the plans happened at all.

So, I met up with one of his closest friends, who I happened to run into after the show.

Let’s call her Maya.

We’ve met a few times now, and every single time we somehow skip straight past the small talk.

One drink somehow became sitting on her couch until three in the morning talking about life.

Every few minutes she’d stop herself and smile.

“Okay… this stays in the vault.”

Which, if you’re even a little bit anxious, is somehow the least reassuring sentence in the English language.

Because now all I can think is…

Wait… is there actually a vault?

She wasn’t really giving me gossip.

She was giving me context.

She told me how full his life is.

How deeply kind he is.

The quiet beauty in the way he somehow keeps showing up for everyone he loves.

How she wishes he’d give himself more evenings with nowhere to be.

She talked about the relationship that broke his heart.

Then she said something I haven’t stopped thinking about.

“I’m really glad he told you about his mom.”

His mom has Alzheimer’s.

We’ve talked about it before.

But hearing someone who’s known him for years say,

“He doesn’t usually let people into that part of his life…”

made me realize something.

Sometimes you don’t know you’ve been trusted until someone else points it out.

At one point she smiled and said,

“Just don’t put all your eggs in Matt’s basket.”

Which…

Honestly?

Is probably good advice.

I laughed and told her I had another date the next day.

Which was true.

But not emotionally.

Because somewhere between Olivia Dean and… honestly… more tequila than any thirty one year old needs…

I stopped trying to sound cool and accidentally started telling the truth.

I told her I really like him.

That he’s not who I would’ve expected.

That we’ve never slept together.

That sometimes it feels like we met at exactly the wrong time.

Nothing I told her was a secret.

Nothing I wouldn’t tell him myself.

Just…

the truth.

Then I woke up the next morning completely panicked.

What if she tells him?

What if he thinks I care more than he does?

And then…

I had this realization that stopped me.

I’m not embarrassed that I like him.

I’m embarrassed that someone watched me like him.

Those are completely different things.

Because if Maya called him today and said,

“Lily really likes you…”

…she wouldn’t be exposing some hidden truth.

She’d just be saying out loud what was already real.

So why did that feel so terrifying?

I think because vulnerability isn’t the moment someone learns something new about you.

It’s the moment another person witnesses something you’ve known about yourself all along.

That you care.

And once another human being has seen that…

you don’t get to quietly tuck it back inside.

I spent the whole morning wondering if I should’ve played it cooler.

Said less.

Felt less.

Protected myself a little more.

But the older I get, the less interested I am in becoming someone who mistakes mystery for depth.

I don’t want to become harder to read just because it’s safer.

I would love to blame the tequila.

Unfortunately… tequila didn’t invent those feelings. It just removed the committee meeting I usually hold before saying them out loud.

The whole morning I kept wondering if I’d shared too much.

Then another question quietly took its place.

What if…

instead of being embarrassed that I shared my heart…

I celebrated the fact that I still have one that’s brave enough to share?

After everything life has handed me…

Heartbreak.

Disappointment.

Beautiful timing.

Terrible timing.

The fact that I can still meet another human being and quietly hope for a little more ordinary life with them…

doesn’t actually feel like something to recover from.

It feels like proof.

Proof that somewhere along the way, life didn’t make me smaller.

It didn’t make me colder.

It didn’t convince me to love with one foot already out the door.

If anything…

it left me with the courage to keep showing up exactly as I am.

And I think…

that’s a life worth falling into.

He’s sober.

He’s vegetarian.

He grew up with ten brothers and sisters.

If you’d handed me that list a week ago and asked, “Could you see yourself with this person?” I probably would’ve smiled politely and said, “Honestly… probably not.”

Not because there’s anything wrong with any of those things.

Just because our worlds looked so different.

I grew up close to wine country, where tasting wine was practically a family activity before I was old enough to speak in full sentences. Food wasn’t just food in our house - it was how we loved each other.

My parents are incredible cooks.

One night my mom would spend hours making osso buco or bouillabaisse. The next she’d throw burgers on the grill, barbecue chicken thighs, or a whole branzino that somehow tasted like summer itself.

Traveling meant wandering through markets, trying something we’d never eaten before - alpaca carpaccio in Peru or paper-thin jamón carved straight off the leg in Spain.

The table was where our family happened.

So yes… when I heard “vegetarian,” a tiny part of me mourned the imaginary sushi dates and steak dinners I’d apparently already planned with a man I’d never met.

And “sober?”

There’s nothing quite like a crisp white on a warm afternoon. And a filthy martini has certainly never offended me.

Then I had to check myself on something that was both inconvenient and true.

I don’t actually drink that much.

Somehow I’d turned an occasional glass of wine into a defining personality trait.

Which is… embarrassing.

Because somewhere around hour three of our date, I realized how unbelievably bad I am at predicting what actually matters.

Former Mormon.

Vegetarian.

Sober.

Those words felt so significant before they belonged to a real person.

Then suddenly…

Who cares?

And if the trade-off is laughing over a bowl of olives, sharing a pot of tea, and getting lost in the animated green eyes of a dark-haired man who makes the whole world feel a little more awake…

I’ll happily eat the olives with him.

Because somewhere between the imaginary sushi dates I thought I’d miss…

…and the actual bowl of olives sitting in front of us…

I realized attraction had been hiding in a place I’d never thought to look.

Maybe there are two kinds of people.

The ones who move through the world.

And the ones who gently wake it up.

When the waiter set down a little silver dish of warm Castelvetrano olives glistening in olive oil, my date looked up and said…

“Tell me something interesting about these olives.”

I knew exactly what he was doing.

He wasn’t asking about the olives.

He was asking the waiter to play.

Silence.

The waiter blinked.

You could almost hear his brain frantically flipping through every olive fact he’d never needed before.

I felt so bad for him.

So I jumped in.

“Okay,” I laughed. “How many do you think are in there?”

His whole body relaxed.

“Oh…”

He guessed.

Then another waiter wandered over and guessed.

Then we guessed.

For the next five minutes, four adults stood around a tiny silver bowl estimating the olive population like we’d been handed a Nobel Prize in Mediterranean mathematics.

I don’t remember who won.

I remember laughing so hard my cheeks hurt.

And then I realized something.

Some people don’t make life more exciting.

They make life more interesting.

There’s a difference.

Adventure needs a passport.

Wonder just needs someone willing to ask an unnecessary question.

We talked for hours.

Not interview style.

Not first date tennis.

You know those conversations where every answer quietly opens another door?

Where you accidentally forget to perform because you’re too busy being curious?

It felt like that.

The restaurant dissolved.

The music disappeared.

At some point I realized I hadn’t looked at my phone once.

Not because I was trying to be present.

Because I already was.

A couple hours in, he looked at me with this almost boyish grin.

“Can I hold your hand?”

His hand was warm.

He didn’t just hold it.

He stayed curious.

Every few minutes our hands became something different.

Fingers woven together.

Then just our fingertips.

His thumb slowly tracing circles across the back of my hand while we kept talking about completely unrelated things.

It felt less like someone holding my hand…

…and more like someone learning it.

Like he couldn’t stop wondering,

“Does this feel good?”

I don’t know.

There’s something devastatingly intimate about someone paying attention.

Eventually the waiter came with the check.

“I’ve had such a great time,” he said.

“Me too.”

Then he smiled.

“This date doesn’t have to be over.”

No pretending he had somewhere important to be, strategic scarcity or cool guy act.

Just…

“I like being here.”

It sounds so simple.

It almost made me sad.

How rare honesty has become.

We wandered into a Yemeni tea shop next.

If you’ve never wondered what it would feel like to flirt inside an operating room…

I highly recommend this place.

The fluorescent lights were so bright I swear I could see my own thoughts.

Every surface echoed.

Every person inside slowly looked up from their tea to watch the newcomers.

We lasted approximately forty-five seconds.

Looked at each other.

Burst out laughing.

And left.

I think compatibility is measured in moments exactly like that.

Not finding someone who always picks the right place.

Finding someone who immediately knows when it’s the wrong one.

Later we started talking about what we’re actually looking for.

Not on a dating profile.

Not on paper.

In a life.

For the first time, I heard myself say something I’d never quite been able to articulate.

“My life already feels really full. I don’t need someone to complete it. I just want someone to share the magic of being alive with. I want us to witness each other.”

He got quiet.

“I think…” he said.

“I just want to be known.”

I actually laughed.

Not because it wasn’t beautiful.

Because we’d met on an app called Known.

The marketer in me had to physically restrain herself from saying, Wow… their brand team is going to love you.

Known.

Witnessed.

It’s funny how two words can echo long after a conversation ends.

Maybe they’re the same thing wearing different clothes.

Maybe being known isn’t someone memorizing your favorite color.

Maybe it’s someone noticing that you instinctively rescue confused waiters.

That you secretly hate making out where strangers can watch, so you quietly guide them around the corner before kissing them because intimacy, to you, has always felt holier when nobody else is looking.

Maybe love isn’t built in grand gestures.

Maybe it’s built the way sea glass is made.

One tiny touch. Then another. Then another.

Until something ordinary becomes impossibly smooth simply because it has been held for so long.

And maybe that’s why the kiss stayed with me.

Not because it was passionate.

I’ve had passionate kisses before.

This felt…

awake.

He had this way of kissing me where every so often he’d gently catch my bottom lip before kissing me again, and every single time my entire nervous system forgot how to think.

But even that isn’t what I keep replaying.

It felt like improvising the same dance without anyone deciding who was leading.

Every time one of us changed the rhythm, the other somehow understood.

His hands moved the same way our conversation had all night.

Never in a rush.

Resting softly on my shoulder.

Sliding gently beneath the edge of my sleeve.

Tracing lightly down my back.

Finding my hand again.

Always changing.

Always paying attention.

It didn’t feel like someone trying to get somewhere.

It felt like someone staying exactly where we already were.

Maybe that’s the sexiest thing I’ve experienced in a long time.

Not intensity. Attention.

I used to think chemistry was intensity.

Butterflies. Fireworks. The stories we tell our friends afterward.

I’m starting to think it’s something much quieter.

It’s attention. Attention to the waiter. Attention to my hand. Attention to every little cue my body was giving him. Attention to all the tiny moments most people hurry past.

Maybe that’s what being known actually is.

Someone paying enough attention that your ordinary life becomes extraordinary simply because they were there to notice it with you.

My Uber pulled up on the other side of the street just as the crosswalk started blinking.

So naturally, I did this weird little panic-trot in heels across one of San Francisco’s busiest intersections.

Not a run. Not a walk. Somewhere between a gazelle and someone who’s late for Boarding Group C.

About halfway across, I had one very important thought.

Don’t look back.

Because if he was watching me and I sincerely hoped he wasn’t I didn’t want to witness myself witnessing him witnessing…

…whatever that was.

So I just committed.

The entire drive home I replayed that run at least twenty times.

Did I look graceful? Absolutely not.

Did I briefly consider that this could become the lasting image he has of me? Unfortunately, yes.

But maybe that’s dating.

You spend four hours trying to show someone the most composed, articulate version of yourself…

…and the final scene is you scampering across an intersection like a baby deer who just discovered gravity.

Maybe that’s also what being known is. Not someone falling for the polished version of you.Someone eventually collecting enough tiny, wonderfully unedited moments that they know the real one.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.

Maybe I will.

Maybe I won’t.

But if nothing else, he completely ruined my confidence in making snap judgments about people.

Turns out…

I’d rather spend four hours laughing over a bowl of olives than spend a lifetime believing I knew people before I met them.

Life is weird.

Thank God.

Mine wears Skechers and the same black and orange Giants baseball cap every single day. (Or at least I assume it’s the same one because I’ve genuinely never seen another hat.)

He works in music.

We make music together.

Sometimes he serenades me.

We go to a lot of concerts.

Which is why, somewhere along the way, he became known as Concert Guy.

We’ve known each other since last fall.

We’ve kissed.

We’ve spent nights wrapped around each other.

Somehow we’ve never had sex.

Not because I don’t want to.

Because I know myself.

People always talk about sex like it’s the thing that creates intimacy.

For me, intimacy always arrives first.

Sex doesn’t create attachment for me.

It deepens something that’s already incredibly real.

And that’s exactly what makes Concert Guy so… beautifully confusing.

Because this has never felt one sided.

That would almost be easier.

The confusing part is that sometimes two people can look at each other and silently agree,

Whatever this is… it’s rare.

…and still not know what to do with it.

Last night we went to see Chris Stapleton.

At some point during the show, I realized I wasn’t really watching Chris anymore.

I was watching Chris watch his wife, Morgane.

Or maybe I was watching Morgane watch Chris.

I’m honestly not sure.

They kept looking at each other while they sang.

It wasn’t flashy or performative. It felt like two people who had slowly built a language no one else could hear.

A glance. A smile. A harmony.

Twenty years somehow fitting inside three seconds of eye contact.

At some point, I leaned over and said,

“We need to make more music together.”

Without missing a beat, he smiled.

“I mean… that could be us.”

It’s become a running joke between us.

Anytime we see musicians completely in their element, one of us inevitably says,

That could be us.

Then he added,

“Except you’d be Chris, and I’d be the wife.”

I laughed.

“No. You’d be Chris. Seriously, you underestimate yourself. You’re so talented.”

For a second, he looked genuinely surprised.

Like the compliment had landed somewhere he wasn’t expecting.

Then, almost immediately, he smiled and threw it right back at me.

“I think YOU underestimate yourself. You are so incredibly talented.”

The song kept going.

We’d look back at the stage.

Then catch each other again out of the corner of our eyes.

Smile.

Look away.

Smile again.

Like we were both watching the concert…

…and somehow watching each other, too.

The rest of the night was exactly the kind of night I didn’t realize I’d been starving for.

His friends were so fun.

Not because they were trying to impress anyone.

Because they were just… themselves.

The conversations wandered.

People interrupted each other because they were excited.

Someone started telling one story and accidentally told four.

The funny thing is, nobody there really knows about us.

To them, I’m just Lily.

The girl Concert Guy invited to the show.

A friend.

Which, technically…

is true.

Meanwhile, I’m standing next to someone I have to consciously remind myself not to reach for.

Not because anyone told me not to.

Because whatever this is has always lived in this strange, unspoken in between.

So instead of grabbing his hand…

I make another joke.

…I find reasons to be near him.

A shoulder bump.

A group hug.

Anything innocent enough to pass unnoticed.

At one point, his friends wandered off to grab another round.

Without thinking, we reached for each other’s hands.

He held mine tighter than I expected.

It’s funny how a few seconds can completely rearrange your nervous system.

Then everyone came back.

We let go.

The conversation picked back up.

As if nothing had happened.

I don’t even remember what everyone was talking about when they came back.

I remember the feeling of my hand after he’d let go.

It’s strange, the things your body decides are worth remembering.

It’s almost funny.

My whole nervous system just wants to move toward him.

Not from anxiety.

Not from needing him to choose me.

From something I still don’t have words for.

I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

If you saw him walking down the street in his Skechers and his Giants hat, you probably wouldn’t think twice.

Somehow…

He’s become one of the few places where I completely exhale.

And somewhere on the drive home, I realized I’d been misunderstanding that feeling.

I kept thinking I was grieving the relationship I don’t have.

Maybe that’s part of it.

But I don’t think it’s the whole story.

I think what I’ve really been grieving is belonging.

The feeling of sitting around with people who are deeply interested in life.

People who make things.

Who laugh hard.

Who stay out later than they planned because the conversation is too good to leave.

Who still dance without needing a reason.

Who know every single word to that damn good Stapleton song.

Somewhere over the last few years, while building a business…

and then building another one…

moving to multiple new cities…

and letting go of friendships that didn’t have my best interests at heart…

my world quietly became very small.

Not empty.

Just… efficient.

Wake up.

Work.

Create.

Build.

Repeat.

I forgot that a beautiful life isn’t only built.

It’s shared.

A year ago, I met him at the wrong time.

He liked me.

I didn’t really see him.

I was still untangling myself from a relationship that had quietly convinced me I wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t have imagined that the man in Skechers and the Giants hat would become someone I think about this much.

Life has a strange sense of timing.

And an even stranger sense of humor.

Because now…

I’m the one wondering.

Not in a desperate way.

Not even in a waiting way.

Just in a deeply curious way.

If I could change this much in a year…

Maybe timing isn’t nearly as fixed as we think it is.

Maybe this is exactly what it will always be.

Two people who happened to find something rare and beautiful at slightly different moments in their lives.

Or maybe timing is a living thing.

Maybe stories have a way of changing while we’re busy living them.

I honestly don’t know.

And for the first time in a long time…

I don’t feel like I need to.

I opened this essay by telling you that every writer accidentally creates recurring characters.

Maybe that’s because some people aren’t meant to teach us through endings.

Maybe they’re meant to teach us through their return.

They keep wandering back into the story until we finally notice what they’ve been pointing toward all along.

Sometimes that’s love.

Sometimes it’s belonging.

Sometimes it’s the version of yourself you only seem to meet in their company.

And sometimes…

the most beautiful part of a recurring character is that you have absolutely no idea what chapter they’re walking into next.

You spend years figuring out your type.

You date enough people to convince yourself you’ve become wise.

You start saying things like,

“I know exactly what I’m looking for.”

And attraction goes,

“Aww.”

“That’s adorable.”

Then it hands you a man who owns favorite Skechers.

Plural.

Respectfully…

Explain yourself.

We met on a dating app.

According to him, he was “very available.”

At that point I was not…

I left our first date thinking,

“He’s lovely.”

“We’re absolutely going to be just friends.”

Not because anything was wrong with him.

He was funny. Curious. Kind.

He smelled incredible. Not expensive cologne. Just… warm. Like cedar and fresh laundry had somehow figured out how to flirt. The kind of smell that lingers on your sweatshirt all the way home.

He remembered tiny unimportant things I’d said.

Asked thoughtful questions.

Made me laugh.

Still.

I just didn’t feel anything.

So I did what women have been doing since the beginning of time.

I said,

“We should be friends.”

Which, in woman, generally translates to,

“I genuinely wish you all the best.”

Except this man had the audacity to believe me.

A couple weeks later he texted me.

“I think you’d love this concert.”

So I said,

“Should we go?”

Now…

I wasn’t actually suggesting we go.

I was suggesting the imaginary version of going.

The, “We should totally do that sometime!” that everyone immediately forgets about.

This man got the tickets. Immediately.

Then…the concert got canceled.

Which, looking back, feels exactly like something life would do.

“Oh… you thought this story was about the concert?”

“Cute.”

So we grabbed one drink instead.

One. Tiny. Responsible. Friendship. Drink.

We left at three in the morning.

Somewhere between talking about music, childhood, grief, why people become who they become, and laughing so hard they started stacking chairs around us…

I got into trouble.

Not because he suddenly became hotter.

Because he became weirder and more real.

In the best possible way.

The more I got to know him, the less he made sense on paper. Frankly, he wasn’t even my demographic.

The first time I went to his apartment, I couldn’t focus on anything except the kitchen table.

It looked like Hungryroot had exploded.

Not in an aesthetic influencer way.

Just… piles of LesserEvil popcorn, Chomps meat sticks, Hi-Chew gummies, Late July chips, and honestly enough snacks to survive a minor apocalypse.

His wardrobe consisted almost entirely of faded concert tees, a giant’s baseball cap that he pairs with almost every outfit he wears, jeans, Skechers, and one hoodie that had clearly earned tenure.

Nothing about him felt curated.

He wasn’t trying to be interesting.

He just… was.

And somehow that made him incredibly interesting.

We started making music together.

One drink became six hours.

One song became an entire playlist.

One conversation somehow became the best part of my week.

He has this way of looking at me with those hazel eyes that’s less,

“I’m trying to impress you,”

and more,

“I’m really happy you’re here.”

It turns out that’s wildly attractive.

Then one night he goes,

“So… I should probably tell you something.”

Apparently, somewhere between our first date not working out and us reconnecting, he’d made himself a promise.

One year.

No relationships.

Just music.

Travel.

“A single sabbatical.”

I just stared at him.

Because…Respectfully… Could this not have come up before I accidentally fell for you?

Instead, we’d spent weeks collecting little moments.

Then he looked at me and said,

“I really like spending time with you. I don’t feel like this with anyone else.

BUT...

I just want to honor the promise I made to myself.”

Honestly?

That is an outrageous combination of sentences.

And yes, walking away would’ve absolutely been the clean choice.

Instead I thought, “We’ve already tried being friends once. Maybe we’ll just… be spectacularly confusing friends.”

So we kept making music.

Kept ordering takeout.

Kept saying,

“I should probably head home.”

Then somehow…

It would be one in the morning. Or two.

Hours quietly slipped through our fingers.

At some point we’d stop sitting across from each other.

I never noticed when.

I only noticed after.

Somehow our legs would end up tangled together with significantly less layers of clothing like they’d made the decision without consulting either of us.

Neither of us acknowledged it.

Which somehow made it impossible not to notice.

Every now and then I’d look over…

…and he’d just be staring at me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

He’d smile.

“I’m just enjoying the view.”

Which, respectfully…

Should be illegal to say to someone who’s trying very hard to keep her feels in check.

We’re “friends.”

The dangerous thing about us wasn’t that anything dramatic happened. It was that nothing ever seemed to. It was one more song. One more conversation. One more laugh. One more minute. Until one day you look up and realize “just friends” has quietly started requiring air quotes.

The chemistry between us became like that one friend who absolutely refuses to leave the party. Always there. Always grinning. Always reminding us we were fooling absolutely no one.

I made myself one rule.

Don’t sleep with him.

Which sounded very mature.

It also turned out to be hilariously specific.

Because life, apparently, loves a loophole.

Which brings us to the longest-running joke of our “friendship”.

For months this man kept insisting he was a dom.

And Every. Single. Time.

I’d laugh.

Sir. You own favorite Skechers. You are basically a golden retriever with a guitar. Absolutely not.

He’d never argue.

Never defend himself.

Never try to convince me.

He’d just smile.

Like someone who knew the ending of the movie and wasn’t about to spoil it.

Then one evening…Something shifted.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. I just caught a glimpse of whatever he’d been smiling about all along. There was this quiet certainty about him I’d somehow mistaken for softness.

Turns out those aren’t the same thing.

I remember thinking,

…oh. shit.

Well that’s new.

And then, almost immediately,

This is deeply inconvenient.

I have never wanted to issue a formal written apology faster.

Also…

You know that thing people always say about guitar players and their fingers? I’d spent years assuming it was just one of those urban legends. I’d like to officially retract that opinion. That’s all I’m going to say.

Learning this was unfortunate timing, considering we’d already agreed to this wonderfully confusing “friendship” built on music, late-night conversations, and pretending we weren’t making each other’s lives significantly more alive.

Life has an incredible sense of humor.

The one man I decide to exercise restraint with…

Turns out to be the one who makes restraint feel like an Olympic sport.

Which is deeply unfair.

Because I don’t think the chemistry stops at the chemistry.

I think, with the right person, it leaks into the whole damn life.

And that’s the part that gets me.

Not that I can imagine falling into bed with him.

I already know we’d have chemistry.

It’s that I can imagine falling into a life with him.

Sometimes I catch myself wondering what we’d actually be like if he hadn’t gone on his single sabbatical.

And honestly?

I think we’d give exactly zero fucks.

The kind of love where romance isn’t polished, it’s lived in.

Sticky barbecue fingers. Stuffing our faces with way too much mac and cheese while we Lady and the Tramp the last rib.

Which is objectively disgusting.

And somehow…

Wildly romantic.

There’s something unbelievably sexy about the kind of comfort where you can be completely unapologetic.

Messy.

Ridiculous.

Comfortable enough to forget anyone’s watching.

I could see us spending an hour making the world’s greatest playlist for a twenty-minute drive. Then we’d miss our exit because neither of us ever stopped talking.

We’d wander the farmers market looking for the perfect tomato like our entire dinner depended on it.

We’d come home with too much basil, music playing way too loud, and the completely unreasonable confidence that homemade pasta sauce was a good Tuesday night idea.

The pasta would boil over.

We probably wouldn’t notice.

Because we’d be too busy dancing and singing in the kitchen, laughing at absolutely nothing, and forgetting what we were even cooking in the first place.

I am so certain we’d look at each other halfway through the most ordinary day imaginable and think,

God… this is fun.

Which is deeply inconvenient.

Because I have no idea if this single sabbatical is a chapter…

…or the whole book.

Maybe one day he’ll be done honoring the promise he made to himself.

Maybe he won’t.

Which, for someone who usually likes a plan…

Is both terrifying…

And strangely exciting.

Not coffee. Not drinks. Not even the optimistic little, “We’ll grab something if we feel like it.”

No.

Just… walking.

Which, in hindsight, should’ve been my first clue.

The second clue was that he showed up with a sweater draped over his shoulders like he was on his way to captain a sailboat.

And where exactly are these two strangers walking to?

Nowhere, apparently.

He picked 3 p.m., which feels like the most emotionally unavailable time slot on the calendar. It’s too late for coffee, too early for dinner, and somehow says,

I’d like to meet you, but only in a way that’s impossible to romanticize.

Fine.

If we’re just free-ranging through Golden Gate Park, my dog is coming.

From the second we met, it felt like we’d both shown up forty-five minutes early to a party.

Like we were just… waiting. Not for anything specific. Just waiting. I kept thinking we’d settle in. We never did. Within ten minutes I’d accepted that I was responsible for the conversation.

I’d ask a question.

He’d answer.

And somehow every answer managed to end the conversation instead of continue it.

“Where does your family live?”

“San Francisco” he responds.

Cool.

As if we’d met in Nebraska.

Meanwhile we’re literally standing in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

I’m not asking for the street address.

Just… a neighborhood.

Sir. Give me a breadcrumb.

I attempt to narrow it down even more…

“Sooo what do you like to do?” This should be an easy one right? Wrong.

He responds “I don’t know… not really into sports or art.”

Great. We’re making incredible progress…

Eventually I stopped interviewing him and just started filling the silence.

I told stories. About work, growing up, building my business. At one point I found myself explaining psychedelics to a man whose emotional range, up until then, had been somewhere between oatmeal and drywall.

Ironically, that was the most interested he seemed all afternoon. Or maybe he wasn’t interested. Maybe he was just facing me. Honestly, it was hard to tell.

I wasn’t talking because I love talking about myself. I was talking because the alternative was listening to our footsteps. And after about forty-five minutes…even the footsteps were starting to feel awkward.

Meanwhile, another thought had entered the chat.

His breath.

Now listen. I’m not talking about the kind where you think, “Huh… maybe he had garlic.”

I’m talking about the kind where my brain quietly opened twelve investigative tabs.

Is this halitosis? Does he need to floss?

Why am I trying to diagnose a man I’m actively losing interest in?

By this point I wasn’t even on a date anymore.

I was simultaneously discussing psychedelics while trying to diagnose the cause of this man’s horrible breath.

Then we walked past this completely unremarkable little fountain. The kind of thing you’d normally walk right past without giving it a second thought.

The water was this aggressively artificial shade of green.

Like…

if you fell in, you might come out with superpowers.

He stopped.

Pulled out his phone.

Started taking pictures of it like we’d just stumbled upon Niagara Falls.

Then he looked at me and asked,

“Do you think that’s naturally green? Maybe algae?”

I looked at the fountain. Then I looked at him. Then back at the fountain. For a second I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn’t.

Later we came across this beautiful clearing with a massive fallen tree. The kind of place that almost asks you to stop for a minute.

I said,

“Want to sit for a second?”

He looked genuinely uncomfortable and says “Maybe we should keep walking.” And somehow that ended up feeling like the entire date.

Keep moving. Don’t linger. Don’t look too closely. Just keep walking.

The strange thing is that, objectively, he’d lived a fascinating life. He’d lived in different countries, traveled, earned multiple degrees.

His dad also died on his birthday. Mine too. I’d genuinely never met anyone else that had happened to. For a second I thought,

Oh… here’s the doorway.

The kind of coincidence that makes two strangers suddenly stop talking on the surface and start talking for real.

So I asked him how he’d processed it.

“I haven’t.”

That answer stayed with me.

Not because there’s a right way to grieve.

There isn’t. But because it seemed to explain everything else. He’d lived all these experiences. I just couldn’t find him inside any of them.

And I realized that’s actually what I’m attracted to. Not an interesting life. Someone who seems interested in being alive. The kind of person who notices the way the light comes through the trees. Who gets excited over something small. Who falls in love with ideas. Who laughs with their whole body. Who seems awake inside their own life.

Because aliveness isn’t measured by how much you’ve done. It’s measured by how awake you are while you’re doing it.

You can fill a passport. Collect degrees. Live in ten different countries. But if none of it ever seems to touch you…what exactly were you there for?

On the walk back, my dog had been…

polite.

Which, if you know her, is suspicious. Normally she’s convinced every stranger is a long-lost best friend. Today? Nothing. She barely acknowledged him.

Then this woman walks by, spots my dog from twenty feet away, and goes,

“Oh my God! That’s the cutest dog I’ve ever seen! Can I pet her?”

Before I’d even finished saying yes, my dog launched herself toward this complete stranger like they’d been separated at birth. Tail wagging. Whole body wiggling. Absolutely ecstatic. The woman was laughing. It was, without question, the most chemistry anyone displayed all afternoon.

Then he glanced at me with the most disappointed look in his eyes and said,

“She never did that to me.”

I almost said,

“Yeah… she’s usually a pretty good judge of character.”

Instead…I refrained and just smiled.

When we made it out of the park, he very kindly offered to drive me home. I thanked him and said I’d walk. Partly because it was a beautiful afternoon. Mostly because if I could smell your breath in the open air… I wasn’t interested in finding out what the enclosed version was like.

So I walked home. It’s a walk I do all the time. Usually by myself. And the funny thing is… I enjoyed it a whole lot more than the walk I’d just spent the last hour on.

Has this become my bar for dating?

Not, Do I like you? Or could this work?

Just one very simple question:

Is this better than walking by myself?

Because my solo walks are actually pretty great. I notice things, get excited about ideas, call friends, stop when a weird texture catches my eye or when my dog catches an especially good sniff. Sometimes I just listen to the birds.

Turns out the competition isn’t another guy. It’s the life I’ve already built. And that’s a surprisingly hard date to beat.

Which, in hindsight, is a little like standing on the beach in February and announcing you’ve moved on from summer.

Of course you have.

It’s February.

The conditions are not exactly testing your theory.

I hadn’t seen him in six weeks.

No concerts.

No accidentally sitting too close to each other.

No laughing at things that aren’t actually funny.

No prolonged eye contact.

Nothing.

So naturally I concluded I was healed.

As one does.

Then I walked into the sushi restaurant and immediately spotted him.

We locked eyes.

And I smiled.

Instantly.

Which was revealing.

Because I’ve recently realized I spend most of my life walking around with a fairly protective resting bitch face.

But the second I saw him, my whole face softened.

No effort, decision or trying.

Just:

There you are.

Then he stood up to hug me.

And there it was.

That familiar scent.

Warm. Musky. Distinctly him.

And suddenly I remembered something.

Have you ever gone so long without hearing your favorite song that you forget it exists?

Not because you stopped loving it.

Because life got loud.

Other songs came on.

You got busy. Months go by. Maybe years.

Then one random Tuesday you’re wandering through a grocery store looking for avocados and suddenly it comes on.

Three notes in and you’re gone.

Transported.

Now you’re standing in the produce section having a full spiritual experience while a stranger is trying to grab a cucumber.

That’s what it felt like.

Not because he’s my favorite song.

Because the feeling was.

The feeling of recognition.

The feeling of surprise.

The feeling of being caught completely off guard by your own joy.

For one second, every feeling I’d carefully packed away over the last six weeks came wandering back into the room.

Which felt deeply unfair.

Because I had been doing great.

Thriving, actually.

Building things. Healing. Growing. Becoming.

Meanwhile my nervous system was apparently one hug away from completely changing its opinion.

The thing about him is that I don’t even know if I want him.

That’s the problem.

If I wanted him, this would actually be easier.

Instead, I keep finding myself wondering:

Do I want him?

Or do I want the feeling?

Because I genuinely like him.

I like how weird we are together.

I like that conversation with him feels like chasing fireflies.

Every thought lights up another thought.

Every story becomes three more stories.

Hours disappear.

Entire trains of thought wander off into the woods and somehow find their way home again.

I always leave feeling more alive than when I arrived.

Which is probably the problem.

After dinner he came back to my place for the first time.

A sacred honor.

My home is generally reserved for the girls and the gays.

But an exception was made.

Mostly because he tuned my guitar.

Acts of service remain undefeated.

My dog was suspicious of him immediately, which felt validating.

Eventually she warmed up.

Unfortunately, so did I.

A few glasses of wine later we were sitting on my couch talking about us.

Which is never a good sign.

Not because we fight.

Because we don’t.

Because every time we talk about us, we end up standing in front of the same mystery.

There is clearly something here.

And absolutely nowhere for it to go.

It’s like discovering a hidden door in your house that opens into a beautiful room.

And then finding out there’s no floor.

You can stand in the doorway.

You can admire it.

But eventually reality shows up and ruins the magic.

Then he kissed me.

And unfortunately I remembered I still have a pulse.

Which sounds dramatic.

But if you’ve been dating long enough, you know exactly what I mean.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from meeting perfectly wonderful people and feeling absolutely nothing.

Not dislike. Not disappointment. Nothing.

After enough of those dates, you start wondering whether attraction was something that only happened in your twenties.

Like low rise jeans.

Or serotonin.

Then one kiss later and suddenly you’re like:

Oh.

Never mind.

There she is.

And maybe that’s the part I’ve been trying to make sense of.

Because lately I’ve been wondering if connection is just a lot rarer than I thought.

Not attraction. Connection.

The kind where you genuinely like the person.

You want to kiss them, hear their stories, tell them yours. And somehow they feel the same.

Because honestly, dating has become such a strange obstacle course.

Every time I start getting excited about someone, I discover they’ve accidentally left a major detail off the brochure.

They’re not over their ex, not over their divorce, they’re moving, emotionally unavailable, figuring themselves out, healing, exploring, journeying...

Everyone is on a journey.

God bless.

Meanwhile I’m just trying to experience one uninterrupted moment of attraction before the universe slides a footnote across the table.

After enough experiences like that, you stop relaxing into attraction.

You stop wondering:

“What if this works?”

And start wondering:

“Okay, what’s the catch?”

Which is why this whole thing caught me off guard.

Because for a few hours I wasn’t looking for the catch.

I wasn’t analyzing, evaluating or trying to figure out whether this person was available, unavailable, avoidant, secure, anxious, emotionally constipated, secretly moving to Portugal, or about to have a spiritual awakening.

I was just there.

Laughing. Wanting. Feeling.

And if I’m being really honest, I think that’s what I’ve been missing.

Not a boyfriend.

Not even him.

I’ve been missing surprise, delight, the feeling of being completely caught off guard by my own desire. The feeling of remembering there are still rooms inside me I haven’t visited in a while.

The playful room. The curious room. The hungry room. The room that still believes life can surprise her.

Do I want him?

Or do I want the feeling?

I still don’t know.

What I do know is that every time I’m with him, I end up standing in front of the same beautiful room.

And every time, eventually, I remember there’s no floor.

Which is a shame.

Because the room is gorgeous.

And every now and then I catch myself imagining what it would look like with a floor.

Then I remember that I can’t be the only one standing in the hardware store.

But people tell me things.

Not normal things.

Not, “I grew up in Ohio.”

Not, “I have a dog.”

People tell me things that feel like they should come with a release form.

Saturday night, I went on a date with a guy at a festival in North Beach.

It was one of those perfect San Francisco evenings where everyone seems to be outside at the exact same time.

The streets were packed.

The sun was still out.

We wandered around for a bit.

At one point, he wanted to stop and pet some puppies.

Now, I love dogs. I have a dog. He has a dog.

Neither of us is experiencing a dog shortage.

Unfortunately, these puppies appeared to be sitting in what can only be described as a communal puddle of pee.

He looked interested.

I wished them well from a respectful distance.

Eventually we made our way to the Aperol Spritz cart outside Original Joe’s.

Very North Beach. Very summer.

We got drinks and a bag of hand cut potato chips.

Actually, he got a bag of hand cut potato chips.

Asked me to hold them.

Then ate every single one.

A detail that has absolutely nothing to do with the story and yet somehow feels important.

We found a place to sit.

The conversation was easy.

And then, without warning, we left the first date and entered Season Four.

One minute we’re talking about music.

The next minute we’re excavating the emotional ruins of his marriage.

There was the affair.

The aftermath.

The rumor his ex-wife apparently told all his friends about why the marriage ended. Which, according to her, was because he couldn’t get it up.

Then came an unexpectedly passionate rebuttal.

And the thing that fascinated me wasn’t whether it was true.

It was that we’d somehow arrived here at all.

I’d known this man for less than an hour.

But apparently we were clearing up rumors from the divorce.

At a certain point, I stopped trying to follow the timeline and started admiring the speed.

Then, somehow, we found ourselves in a spirited debate about cheating.

He kept explaining that infidelity isn’t black and white.

That marriage is complicated.

That I couldn’t understand because I’d never been married.

And to be fair, he’s probably right.

I’ve never been married.

But I remember sitting there thinking:

Maybe.

But I’ve also never once looked at a relationship and thought,

“You know what would really help here?”

Another person.

Also, I should reiterate that this was, in fact, a first date.

Which felt relevant.

Because while most people spend a first date figuring out whether they have chemistry, we appeared to be workshopping a TED Talk on infidelity.

At one point it started to feel less like a first date and more like I was being asked to defend a thesis I didn’t know I’d written.

Then he looked at me and said:

“I know this probably sounds like I’m not over her.”

Which was interesting because that thought had never crossed my mind.

We were on a date.

I had sort of assumed being over her was implied.

I was still trying to figure out how we got here.

People have histories.

I was mostly fascinated by the speed.

Eventually the date ended.

Not badly or dramatically.

Just naturally.

Like we’d reached the end of the available episode.

We hugged goodbye.

I got into an Uber.

And that’s when the universe introduced a completely different cast of characters.

My driver informed me almost immediately that she’d met the love of her life.

I love love, so naturally I asked questions.

This is how I learned her love was in prison.

This is also how I learned he was currently on speakerphone.

And this is how I accidentally became the third person in the conversation.

The thing that struck me wasn’t that he was in prison.

Honestly, my first thought was that I should probably stop asking questions because I didn’t want to interrupt their phone call.

Which is ridiculous when you think about it.

I was the one paying for the Uber.

And yet somehow I felt like I’d wandered into their date.

What struck me was how she talked about him.

The way she described him, you’d think they’d spent decades building a life together.

Like they’d weathered storms.

Raised children.

Survived the invention of email.

They’d known each other for three days.

Three days.

Never met in person.

And yet they already had a plan.

Texas. Land. A farm. A future.

Turns out they talk multiple times a day.

A fact I learned somewhere between Texas, the farm, and the future.

The confidence was honestly breathtaking.

Not because it made sense.

Because it was completely untouched by doubt.

After years on dating apps, where people need six to eight business days to decide whether they want coffee, I had to admire the efficiency.

Three days in and these two already had a state picked out.

Then we got into prison visitation laws.

Then conjugal visits.

Then a closet she was hoping to meet him in.

I don’t know.

At a certain point, I stopped asking follow-up questions.

Every answer seemed to create three new characters.

Then, somewhere along the ride, she announced:

“GIRL. You need yourself a nice chocolate man in Texas.”

She said this with the certainty of someone recommending a dentist.

Like she’d personally reviewed all available options in California and felt strongly that Texas was my best path forward.

I laughed.

A moment later, her boyfriend chimed in from prison.

He agreed.

Apparently there was a guy.

Another prisoner.

A specific guy.

Waiting somewhere in Texas.

For me.

This recommendation was particularly impressive because I had never told either of them I was single.

Or interested in Texas.Or interested in being set up by a man calling from prison.

And yet somehow they both seemed very confident.

By the time I got home, I couldn’t stop laughing.

The whole night had the energy of someone saying,

“Oh, and one more thing…”

And then somehow that thing being stranger than the thing before it.

I left my apartment hoping for an Aperol Spritz and maybe a little chemistry.

Instead, I got dropped into the middle of a divorce, recruited to move to Texas, and set up with a prisoner.

Honestly?

What is my life?

I got a shocking call.

My boyfriend told me he was questioning his sexuality.

Which was unfortunate.

Mostly because I was under the impression he was my boyfriend.

And also because I’d spent a significant amount of time trying to figure out why he seemed so spectacularly uninterested in sleeping with me.

Now, before you feel bad for me, please know that I handled this revelation exactly the way any mature, emotionally evolved woman would.

I immediately replayed every interaction we’d ever had like I was reviewing security footage after a crime.

The distance. The confusion. The mysterious lack of enthusiasm.

The feeling that I was trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

Suddenly everything made sense.

And honestly?

Finding out your boyfriend is questioning his sexuality is a very specific kind of heartbreak.

Because it’s sad.

But it’s also weirdly reassuring.

Like, thank God.

Not because he’s struggling. That broke my heart even more.

Because it’s significantly better than finding out he just doesn’t like you.

The whole thing left me with a completely normal and healthy new dating philosophy:

Every man is now gay until proven otherwise.

I’m kidding.

Mostly.

For a while, every man became a suspect.

Perfect eyebrows? Suspicious.

Excellent posture? Suspicious.

Knows what a duvet cover is? We’re opening an investigation.

So there I was. Freshly single. Emotionally confused.

Wondering whether chemistry was real or just an elaborate marketing campaign created by Hollywood.

Then I met Jake.

Blue eyes. Dark hair. Six-foot-three. A boxer.

The kind of handsome that makes you start agreeing with opinions you haven’t even heard yet.

The kind of handsome that makes your frontal lobe quietly clock out for the evening.

The chemistry was immediate.

Not fireworks. Fireworks happen once.

This was more like finding a hidden gas line and someone handing us a match.

The outcome felt inevitable.

Throughout the night we’d stop and stare at each other.

“I can’t believe I met you. Where have you been?”

“No, seriously. I can’t believe I met you. Where have you been?!”

Over and over.

Like we’d somehow skipped the awkward part.

Like we’d both accidentally walked into the second act of a movie.

Like we’d found something we’d been searching for.

Not a soulmate. Not destiny. Just proof.

Proof that the thing we’d both been wondering about was still there.

Not because everything was perfect or that we thought we’d found The One.

But because every time we looked at each other, there was this unspoken sense of relief.

We couldn’t stop looking at each other.

Not in a creepy way.

In a “where the hell have you been?” way.

The kind of connection that makes you feel simultaneously sixteen and eighty years old.

Like you’ve known someone for five minutes and somehow also your whole life.

I know.

It’s obnoxious.

Trust me.

I hate people who talk like this too.

And yet.

There I was.

A week later, we went out again.

And I remember pulling up to the bar and seeing him standing outside waiting for me.

In a suit. An actual suit.

Not business casual.

Not “I threw on a button-down.”

A suit.

And maybe that sounds ridiculous, but there was something so unbelievably sweet about it.

The effort. The intention.

The fact that he seemed genuinely excited to see me.

Like this wasn’t just another date.

Like it mattered.

When I got out of the car, he practically lit up.

He wrapped me in the biggest hug, kissed me, and for a second I remember thinking:

Oh no. I’m in trouble.

The night was wine and jazz and entirely too much eye contact, endless conversation, and so much laughter my cheeks hurt.

At one point he leaned over and started singing softly in my ear.

And listen.

I don’t know what evolutionary weakness that triggers in me.

But whatever it is, I have absolutely no defense against it.

None.

Zero.

The man could sing.

At a certain point I stopped trying to determine whether this was a good idea and simply accepted that I was participating in my own downfall.

Then he got quiet.

The way people do when they’re about to tell you something they’ve been carrying for a long time.

That’s when he told me about his marriage.

Years of feeling unwanted. Years of rejection.

Years of slowly convincing himself something wasn’t working.

Eventually, he said, he developed erectile dysfunction.

Or at least that’s what he thought.

And I remember sitting there thinking:

Wow.

The universe really has a sense of humor.

Because here I was.

Fresh out of a relationship wondering whether I was desirable.

And here he was.

Fresh out of a marriage wondering whether he was capable of desire.

Different stories. Same loneliness.

Different wounds. Same question.

Am I wanted?

It’s amazing how many adult problems can be traced back to those three words.

I think that’s why his confession hit me so hard.

Because sitting across from him, I realized we were carrying opposite sides of the same wound.

I’d spent months wondering whether I was desirable.

He’d spent years wondering whether he was capable of desire.

And somehow, against all odds, we’d found ourselves sitting across from each other sharing a bottle of wine.

The universe is many things. Subtle is not one of them.

A few days later, I went to his house.

The plan was dinner.

A real dinner.

The kind of dinner responsible adults have.

I was supposed to be his sous chef for the night.

At least that was the plan.

The counter was covered in groceries and kitchen gadgets.

And a reasonable expectation that eating would occur.

This man had gone shopping.

For me.

Not only had he gone shopping, he’d bought two completely different meals because he wasn’t sure what I’d like.

Which remains one of the cutest things a man has ever done for me.

Unfortunately, those groceries wildly misunderstood their role in the evening.

The second he opened the door, all remaining productivity left the building.

Dinner?

Dinner who?

The poor steak never stood a chance.

Neither did the gluten free pasta.

And here’s where I’d like to revisit the erectile dysfunction conversation.

Because let’s just say his working theory did not survive contact with reality.

Not even a little.

In fact, if restoring a man’s confidence counts as a mitzvah, I’d like partial credit.

Not all of it.

I’m trying to stay humble.

Maybe a certificate. A tasteful plaque. A fruit basket.

Whatever feels appropriate.

The funny thing is that what I remember most isn’t even the sex.

And trust me.

The sex was memorable.

What I remember is how alive we felt.

The way we’d stop in the middle of everything and just stare at each other.

Like we couldn’t quite believe the other person existed.

Like we’d both stumbled into something we’d quietly started to believe wasn’t available to us anymore.

Not each other.

The feeling.

The feeling of being wanted.

Fully.

Enthusiastically.

Unmistakably.

Wanted.

For a little while, everything felt brighter.

Music sounded better. Food tasted better. Life tasted better.

And somewhere along the way, he told me he felt safe with me.

I remember getting quiet after that.

Because the truth was, I felt it too.

Not the kind of safety that comes from time.

We barely knew each other.

The kind that arrives first and makes absolutely no sense.

The kind that makes you tell the truth before you’ve decided whether you should.

The kind that makes you feel more seen in three weeks than you did in relationships that lasted three years.

And I know how ridiculous that sounds.

But there was something about being with him that felt strangely familiar.

Like neither of us was performing.

Like neither of us was trying to earn anything.

Like we could just show up exactly as we were.

And after everything we’d both been through, that felt almost shocking.

I don’t know why, but that was the thing that stuck.

We had so many plans.

Or maybe we had the idea of plans.

Concerts.

Restaurants.

Then, just as suddenly as he arrived, he started disappearing.

Which felt impossible at the time.

A canceled plan. An excuse. A delayed response. Then another.

The kind of leaving that’s so gradual you don’t realize it’s happening until you’re standing there alone.

I never saw him again.

No fight. No explanation. No dramatic ending.

Just absence.

And absence is a peculiar kind of heartbreak.

Because heartbreak gives you a story.

Absence gives you a question mark.

For a long time, I thought I missed him.

The blue eyes. The chemistry. The way he looked at me.

But I don’t think that’s true.

I think what I missed was the version of myself that existed around him.

The woman who remembered she was desirable.

The woman who remembered she was alive.

The woman who stopped treating joy like something that happened to other people.

Do I wish he’d stayed?

Of course.

I’m a romantic, not a monk.

But maybe that was never the gift.

Maybe the gift was the reminder. That after confusion. After heartbreak. After all the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we’re worth…

We were both still capable of feeling that much.

And once you’ve felt that kind of aliveness, it’s very hard to go back to sleep.

I have a theory.

Dating apps have accidentally turned all of us into food stylists.

Not chefs.

Food stylists.

Nobody’s serving the meal anymore.

We’re all just adjusting the garnish.

Move the fish three inches to the left.

Tilt the sunglasses. Add a wedding photo. Throw in a dog. Maybe a baby picture. (For reasons still unknown to science.) And then we sit back and wait for someone to fall in love.

The problem is I’ve dated enough at this point to know that presentation and flavor are not the same thing.

A profile is the menu.

A voice note is the amuse-bouche, if you will.

A tiny taste of what’s actually coming out of the kitchen.

And at some point I need to know if there’s any flavor.

Because after a while every profile starts feeling like you’re shopping for avocados.

This one’s outdoorsy.

This one’s ambitious.

This one likes tacos.

This one likes travel.

This one is looking for a life partner, but open to short. Which feels a little like saying you’re looking for a house but open to camping.

This one is ethically non-monogamous but somehow also wants a wife.

This one is “figuring out his relationship type.”

And yet here he is. Shooting his shot at a woman whose profile basically screams:

“I’d like to build a life with someone.” Meanwhile his profile is still buffering.

I’ve also lost count of the number of men who’ve essentially said:

“I want a relationship girl. I’m just not sure I want a relationship.”

Which feels a little like saying: “I’d love a personal trainer. I just don’t want to exercise.”

And look, I get it.

Profiles matter.

They’re a starting point.

But eventually I need to know if there’s a person behind all this.

Which is why I send voice notes.

Not because I’m trying to be quirky or stand out.

Because I’m looking for signs of life.

The amount of information that leaks out of a twenty second voice note is honestly shocking.

Not your voice.

I don’t care if your voice is deep.

Or high.

(Well… maybe a little.)

Or sounds like you’ve inhaled gravel.

I’m listening for something else.

Curiosity. Warmth. Playfulness. Presence.

Do you sound interested in the conversation?

Do you sound interested in your own life?

Do you sound like there’s a person in there?

Or does every conversation sound like a quarterly earnings call?

The other day I sent a guy a voice note.

His response was:

“I love the voice notes but it took me several takes to actually string a couple sentences together so I’m gonna switch to typing and maybe throw in a voice just to keep you guessing.”

And honestly, I wasn’t even surprised.

Because the amount of men who’ve told me some version of:

“This is my first voice note.”

“I had to record that like six times.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

is honestly kind of incredible.

Like I’ve stumbled into a part of the app nobody told them existed.

You’ll hand me an entire museum exhibit about yourself.

Photos. Prompts. Relationship goals. Political views. Childhood memories apparently.

But the moment I ask for seconds of unscripted humanity?

Everybody starts sweating.

Now we’re recording it six times.

Now we’re saying, “I’ve actually never done this before.”

Now we’ve found the line.

And honestly, that one sentence told me more about him than his entire profile.

The profile told me he likes hiking.

The voice note told me he gets nervous.

One of those is infinitely more interesting.

Because that’s what a voice note does.

It pokes a tiny hole in the performance.

Suddenly the actual person starts leaking out.

The pauses. The awkwardness. The laugh.

The little moments where somebody forgets to manage their image.

And weirdly, those are usually the moments I end up liking most.

Dating apps are full of people trying to be impressive.

Voice notes are where people accidentally become real.

And maybe that’s why so many people avoid them.

Because once someone hears your voice, the menu is over.

Now we’re tasting the food.

And sometimes the dish looks incredible and tastes like cardboard.

Other times the plating is terrible and somehow it’s the best thing you’ve eaten all year.

That’s dating.

I’m not looking for the prettiest menu.

I’m looking for flavor.

And at this point, I think flavor might just be another word for aliveness.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a boy I dated when I was nineteen.

My first real love.

The kind where you’re lying on someone’s bed talking about life and the future and feeling convinced you’ve stumbled into something sacred.

I remember looking at him one night and saying:

“I can’t imagine life without you.”

And he looked back at me and said:

“You should always imagine life without me.”

Gulp.

And then, before I knew it, there were three people in the conversation.

Me.

Him.

And Jesus.

Not because Jesus was bad.

I was just under the impression I was talking to my boyfriend.

I remember having this strange feeling that I couldn’t quite name at the time.

It felt like there was something standing between us.

Like I was trying to talk to him.

And somehow I kept getting redirected to God.

Because I wasn’t looking for a philosophy.

I was looking for the person.

Fast forward thirteen years and I’ve realized I keep encountering different versions of the same experience.

Only now it’s not Jesus.

It’s Jung, archetypes, worldviews, riverbanks, it’s the belly of the whale.

It’s some philosopher you’ve never heard of but are apparently expected to understand immediately.

Which, for the record, sounds fascinating.

But also:

Can I talk to you for a second?

One of the strangest things about modern spirituality is that sometimes it feels remarkably similar to organized religion.

Everybody has their sacred texts.

Their prophets, teachings, community, language that explains everything.

And sometimes I find myself asking the exact same question I asked when I was nineteen:

Where did the person go?

Because lately I’ve noticed that some people don’t just have philosophies.

They hide inside them.

You ask a question.

They answer with a concept.

You get curious.

They reference a teaching.

You push a little further.

They quote a philosopher.

And before you know it, you’re no longer having a conversation with a person.

You’re having a group project with Carl Jung.

Which is unfortunate because I was trying to talk to you.

The irony is that I actually love this stuff.

I love philosophy, psychology, spirituality, diving deep into wild ideas of the universe.

There’s so much juice in these teachings.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about what someone’s philosophy says and started paying attention to what it does.

Because if your worldview is all about connection, what happens when a relationship gets difficult?

If your philosophy is about curiosity, what happens when someone asks a question you don’t like?

If your work is literally helping people navigate emotions, what happens when you’re having emotions?

That’s where I start paying attention.

Not because I expect perfection.

Because that’s where the philosophy either enters the body or remains a PowerPoint presentation.

Maybe that’s what has been bothering me all along.

Not the teachings themselves.

The way they’re sometimes used.

Not to deepen a conversation.

But to end one.

Not to create understanding.

But to avoid it.

Not to reveal the person.

But to protect them from being seen.

Because if Carl Jung agrees with you, wonderful.

I still want to know what you think.

If Joseph Campbell said it, great.

I still want to know what it means to you.

If your community loves the concept, amazing.

I’m still curious about your relationship to it.

Because at the end of the day, I’m not trying to have a relationship with Jung, Jesus, a framework, or a philosophy.

I’m trying to have a relationship with you.

And maybe that’s the question I’ve been asking all along.

Underneath all the teachings.

Underneath all the concepts.

Underneath all the beautiful language.

When the quotes run out…

Who are you?

I keep seeing men on dating apps whose profiles say:

“Looking for a life partner, but open to seeing where it goes.”

And every time I read it, I imagine a man typing:

Looking for a life partner.

He hits save.

Five minutes later it comes back from Legal with edits.

Legal: This language feels overly committal.

Man: I’m on a dating app.

Legal: Exactly.

Legal: Recommend reducing vulnerability exposure by 40%.

Man: What does that even mean?

Legal: Please add additional exits.

Man: Additional exits?

Legal: In case someone gets scared.

Man: Me or her?

Legal: We don’t know yet.

Legal: That’s why we need the exits.

Man: Okay...

Legal: Try: Open to seeing where it goes.

Man: Better?

Legal: Much.

Man: Why?

Legal: Nobody can get hurt by a sentence they don’t fully understand.

And honestly?

The longer I’m on dating apps, the more I think that’s exactly what’s happening.

Not because these men are confused.

I actually know exactly what they’re trying to say.

They’re trying to say:

“I’d love to find my person, but I’m not trying to marry the next woman who agrees to grab a drink with me.”

Totally fair.

The weird part is how allergic we’ve all become to simply wanting something.

Everyone’s trying to look chill, detached, or like they accidentally wandered onto Hinge while looking for directions.

Meanwhile, we’re all on a dating app.

You literally downloaded a stranger catalog.

Let’s stop pretending.

And honestly?

I notice the same thing on dates.

The amount of men who ask:

“What do you want to do?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“What sounds good to you?”

is genuinely fascinating.

Not because those are bad questions.

But because eventually I start wondering:

Do you have any answers?

Nothing is sexier than:

“I found two places. One’s a jazz bar. One’s a cocktail spot.”

Oh my God.

Thank you.

A clue.

A breadcrumb.

A sign of intelligent life.

Because dating apps increasingly feel like a giant gathering of people standing in front of a menu saying:

“I can eat anything.”

No you can’t. Nobody can.

You don’t want sushi, tacos, Ethiopian food, Thai food, pizza, ramen, and a salad.

You want one thing more than the others.

You just don’t want to be held accountable for it.

And that’s when it hit me.

Modern dating is basically the Cheesecake Factory.

The menu is seventy pages long.

Orange chicken. Fish tacos. Pad thai. A burger. Chicken parmesan. Avocado egg rolls. Thirty-seven varieties of cheesecake.

At a certain point you’re not looking at a menu.

You’re looking at an identity crisis.

And honestly?

That’s what some dating profiles feel like.

Looking for marriage. Open to casual. Open to friendship. Open to seeing where it goes.

Sir.

This isn’t a dating intention. This is a menu.

And maybe that’s what I’m reacting to.

Not uncertainty or openness. Just the increasingly rare experience of meeting someone who has spent enough time with themselves to develop a point of view.

Because honestly?

I’m not looking for the Cheesecake Factory. I don’t need seventy pages of options.

I want the tiny restaurant with six seats and a chef who’s deeply in love with what he does.

The kind of place where the menu changes with the season.

Where somebody decided to pair brown butter with cherries and somehow it tastes like summer, nostalgia, and your first kiss all at the same time.

The kind of meal where you take one bite and immediately stop talking.

Then make everyone at the table try it.

“Wait. Here. Taste this.”

Not because it’s expensive or trendy. Because somebody cared enough to develop a point of view.

To experiment.

To refine.

To keep following their curiosity until they found something unexpectedly beautiful.

And maybe that’s what I’m actually hungry for.

Not certainty, rigidity, or a man who’s already picked out our wedding china.

Just someone whose inner world has flavor.

Someone who’s spent enough time paying attention to what delights them that spending time with them feels surprising.

Like discovering a flavor combination I never would’ve ordered myself, but now can’t stop thinking about.

Because after enough profiles that read like the Cheesecake Factory menu, a little curation starts feeling unbelievably sexy.

Not because it’s limiting. Because it’s distinctive and memorable and you can feel the person behind it.

And honestly?

I think that’s what I mean when I say I want someone who knows what they want.

Not someone who already knows they want me.

Someone who’s spent enough time cultivating their own taste that when they show up, they bring something to the table I haven’t experienced before.

I have a question for men.

A real question.

Not judgment.

Not criticism.

An anthropological inquiry.

Why do so many of you believe that holding a fish is your strongest marketing asset?

Because I was recently scrolling through Bumble and came across a profile that said:

Looking for marriage.

Amazing.

Love that.

Big fan of marriage.

All was looking great until…

I got to photo number three.

And there he was.

Holding a fish.

At arm’s length.

Like a waiter presenting the evening specials.

And I realized I genuinely don’t understand what’s happening here.

At what point did an entire gender collectively decide:

“This. This is the image that make women swoon.”

And before anyone says:

“It’s his hobby.”

I understand that.

But if my hobby was making soup, I wouldn’t post a photo of myself holding a Dutch oven over my head like I’d just won the Stanley Cup.

Something else is happening.

My current theory is that it’s some ancient hunter-gatherer software still running in the male operating system.

Some tiny caveman buried deep in the subconscious desperately trying to communicate:

“Woman. Me bring food.”

Which is sweet.

Except most women in 2026 have access to Instacart and Uber Eats.

The software may need an update.

Because what exactly am I supposed to infer from the fish?

That you’ll protect me from salmon shortages?

That if society collapses you’ll be ready?

That we can survive three to five business days in the wilderness?

I need answers.

The fish itself isn’t even the weird part.

It’s the presentation.

The pride.

The way it’s held.

Like a four-year-old showing his mom a macaroni necklace.

“Look what I made.”

Which honestly might be the most sympathetic explanation I’ve come up with.

Maybe fish photos are just adult male dandelions!

A tiny offering to the universe.

Look what I found.

Look what I did.

Please be proud of me.

And honestly?

That’s kind of adorable.

Anyway, lately I’ve been seeing women parody these photos by holding sweet potatoes.

And if I’m being honest?

The sweet potatoes are working.

At least the sweet potato tells you something.

Maybe she cooks.

Maybe she’s funny.

Maybe she understands satire.

Maybe she possesses a surprisingly nuanced relationship with root vegetables.

Information is being communicated.

The fish tells me only three things:

1. You were near water.

2. A fish had a terrible day.

3. You felt this moment was important enough to include on your dating résumé.

And honestly? I respect the confidence.

Because somewhere along the way, you looked at a camera roll full of photos and decided:

“Yep. The fish is making the final cut.”

Not the wedding where you looked handsome, the photo with your grandma or the one where you’re playing guitar and making me wonder what songs you love, what concerts you’ve been to, whether you’d play for me on a random Tuesday night.

The fish.

Every time.

Men, if you’re reading this, please understand:

I am not judging.

I am conducting research.

So for the love of god, can somebody please explain the fish?

My TikTok algorithm has started showing me women who are dating men I’ve already gone out with.

Not my exes. Not men I almost married. Men who made it somewhere between one and three dates before I gently returned them to the wild.

And every time it happens, I experience the exact same sequence of emotions:

“Oh my god.”

Pause.

“Him?”

The thing nobody tells you about modern dating is that eventually the internet becomes a weird little alumni network.

You’ll be innocently scrolling. A cute video pops up. They’re making dinner together. Reorganizing the pantry. Doing a Sunday reset. The comments are full of “Couple goals,” “Obsessed with you two,” and “When’s the wedding?!”

Meanwhile, you’re sitting there holding information that would sound completely unhinged if you shared it.

They say there’s a lid for every pot. For a long time, I thought that was just a cute thing people said. Then the algorithm started showing me women happily dating men I once found deeply, profoundly confusing.

And suddenly I understood.

The saying wasn’t optimistic.

It was documentary.

The latest one was a man I went out with six months ago. His entire personality revolved around a sport he no longer played professionally. Every story somehow found its way back there. Every life lesson. Every personality trait. Every opinion.

To be fair, he was also in a season of transition. And by transition, I mean within the first hour I learned he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, he was working through some anger issues, he was recently sober from a serious drug addiction, and he was trying to figure out who he was outside of the thing he’d built his entire identity around.

None of this was listed on Hinge, but for reasons I don’t fully understand, men tend to sit across from me and something about my face apparently says, “This is a safe place to unpack your entire origin story.”

But genuinely, good for him. That’s brave work.

The date should have made more sense when he suggested we meet at the beach. At the time I thought: how romantic.

In hindsight I thought: how free.

Then came the moment I’ll never forget.

He saw my car and said, “Whoa… you’re rich rich.”

Friends, I was driving a Volkswagen.

Not a Porsche. Not a Range Rover. Not even the expensive Volkswagen. The regular one.

The way he said it wasn’t admiration. It was concern. Like he had just realized we were operating under completely different economic assumptions. Like I’d accidentally shown up to Monopoly with real currency.

The funny thing about seeing these men months or years later isn’t jealousy. It’s confusion.

Because the internet is presenting me with new information.

The man I remember was having a full-blown identity crisis. Meanwhile TikTok is showing me a woman making sourdough while he lovingly assembles a bookshelf and kisses her all over.

When did this happen?

Who trained him?

Was there a workshop? A certification program? A federally funded initiative?

Because the man I met wasn’t a boyfriend.

He was a Kickstarter campaign.

A lot of vision.

Perhaps some potential.

Funding round still open.

The older I get, the less interested I am in labeling people red flags. Most people aren’t red flags. They’re just unfinished stories.

Some people meet a man during his husband era. Some people meet him during his therapy era. Some people meet him during his “I’ve recently discovered podcasts and now have a lot of thoughts” era.

And some of us are out here conducting quality assurance.

I didn’t date him.

I participated in user testing.

Apparently someone else got the software update.

Last night I went on a date with a man who has a standing monthly appointment with his astrologer.

Every month.

Naturally, I assumed I was going to meet someone deeply introspective. A man actively connected with his inner world. Someone who had stared into the abyss and asked it follow up questions.

The truly confusing part?

His profile literally said:

“Looking for a life partner. Someone fun and purposeful to build a meaningful life with. Someone who shares values, shows up, and grows together.”

Honestly?

The man who wrote the profile sounded fantastic.

Halfway through the date, I found myself wondering if he was planning on attending.

The profile sounded like it was written by a man who’d been to therapy.

The date felt like it was attended by his CFO.

Now, before you think this is a story about a man who talked too much about his business, it isn’t.

Although there was certainly a lot of business talk.

Product development. Investor calls. Growth strategies. Hiring plans. Roadmaps. Partnerships.

At one point I wasn’t entirely sure if I was on a date or sitting in on a leadership team meeting.

I kept waiting for the human underneath the accomplishments to show up.

And before you think this is a story about a man who never asked me a single question about myself, it isn’t that either. Although that did happen.

But let’s rewind for a second.

Because the texting should have been my first clue.

For two weeks, he texted me every day.

Detailed messages. Stories. Thoughts. Updates.

The man could absolutely communicate, but what he could not seem to do was ask a single question.

Any question. Ever.

Meanwhile, I am an aggressively curious person. I want to know everything. What made you who you are? What keeps you up at night? What are you excited about? What are you afraid of?

So naturally, I kept asking questions. And to his credit, he answered them. Enthusiastically. At length.

One day he even told me:

“You ask the best questions. You’re so thoughtful and genuinely curious about people, like you really want to learn not just listen.”

Which, looking back, is objectively hilarious. Because yes. Someone had to be.

At some point, I decided maybe conversation wasn’t the path. Music, after all, tells the truth much faster than words do. So we started a shared playlist. Because to me, sharing music is a love language. It’s one of my favorite ways to get to know someone. You can learn a lot from what makes a person sing along in their car. And still, some deeply optimistic part of me kept thinking:

Maybe he’s nervous.

Maybe he’s guarded.

Maybe he just opens up differently in person.

Maybe he is a particularly complex nut to crack.

Then we met.

And it was exactly the same.

Just with eye contact.

At one point I asked a question, answered it myself, expanded on my own answer, and briefly considered asking myself out on a second date.

Eventually I stopped carrying the conversation just to see what would happen.

The silence flourished.

Every few minutes he would break it with a soft little:

“Mm-hmm.”

Not the curious or the interested kind.

The kind your accountant makes while reviewing tax documents.

Just:

“Mm-hmm.”

By the end of the evening, that sound was starting to feel like nails on a chalkboard.

But here’s the thing that baffles me… he seemed genuinely captivated by me.

Not attracted. Captivated.

Every time I talked about music, creativity, wonder, sunsets, flavors, spirituality, emotions, or anything remotely related to being a human being, he lit up.

Unfortunately, this was also around the time I became aware of his body odor.

Which, as a highly sensory person, felt less like information and more like an immersive experience. A detail I tried very hard to rise above. A detail firmly committed to my nostrils.

At one point he looked at me and said:

“I haven’t felt this alive in a very long time.”

Which is, objectively, one of the stranger compliments I’ve ever received. Partly because it sounds romantic. Partly because we were sitting six feet apart in a restaurant with all the sexual tension of a hospital waiting room.

The average age in this room was approximately 67. He was eating a carrot hummus that had the texture and flavor of baby food. I was drinking my wine like I was being paid by the sip. The vibe was less “electric chemistry” and more “early bird special.”

And yet.

There he was.

Feeling alive.

He kept reminding me that I was a Scorpio.

As though wonder, curiosity, passion, and emotional depth were all safely contained inside an astrological filing cabinet.

And that’s when I understood.

Most people would’ve heard that comment and assumed he was describing chemistry.

I wasn’t so sure.

It sounded more like a man discovering that life had a volume knob.

After dinner, we took a stroll because some deeply optimistic part of me thought maybe I’d like him more with a sunset glow behind him.

Maybe he just needed better lighting. Maybe it was a cinematography issue.

It was not.

The “mm-hmms” continued.

But I stood there completely mesmerized by the sky.

The yellow light pouring over the mountains. The pink undertones in the haze. The whole thing glowing from within.

Finally I looked over and said:

“Can we just take a minute for this?”

And as I stood there pointing out colors and light and texture, I could practically see the confusion on his face. Like I was revealing highly classified information about the sky.

And that’s when it hit me.

Every time I talked about something I loved, I talked about the experience of it.

The feeling. The texture. The sensation.

I don’t just like pie.

I like the way a warm slice of strawberry rhubarb pie, fresh out of the oven, turns a scoop of vanilla ice cream into a puddle. The way the tartness hits first and the sweetness follows. The flaky crust giving way underneath your fork. The melted edges. The hot and cold colliding together on your tongue. The whole glorious mess of it.

I don’t just like music.

I like the way a song can crack something open inside you.

I don’t just like sunsets.

I like stopping long enough to notice them.

And every time I described something I loved, he listened like I was explaining a place he’d never been.

Which also explained our shared playlist.

His songs weren’t bad.

Bad would’ve been easier.

They were perfectly nice.

The audio equivalent of room-temperature water.

Every song sounded like it had been approved by Human Resources.

Meanwhile, my side looked like someone had spilled red wine across a diary.

Soul. Longing. Heartbreak. Desire.

The occasional emotional crisis disguised as a bass line.

He listened and said:

“These make me want to make out at a concert.”

As though he’d just discovered music was capable of causing side effects.

And I almost wanted to say:

Yes. That’s the point.

And suddenly the entire date made sense.

The reason he seemed so fascinated by me wasn’t because I was saying anything particularly profound. It was because I was describing a way of moving through the world that felt unfamiliar to him.

A world where music isn’t background noise.

A sunset isn’t something you glance at while checking your email.

A pie isn’t just pie.

A world where experiences are meant to be experienced.

The profile promised a man who’d done the inner work.

The date felt like he’d outsourced it.

The strangest part was that he didn’t seem unhappy.

He just seemed... absent.

He had these striking blue eyes.

The kind you’re supposed to get lost in.

But every time I looked at them, I had the odd feeling that I was standing on the front porch of a beautiful house with nobody answering the door.

And maybe that’s why I left feeling strangely sad for him.

Because underneath all the roadmaps, investor calls, growth strategies, partnerships, and monthly astrology appointments was a man who seemed hungry for something he couldn’t quite name.

Something deeper, messier, human.

I hope he finds it.

I really do.

But I really don’t think he was looking for a life partner.

I think he was looking for a pulse.

And for one evening, I happened to be the park ranger.

Leading guided tours through wonder.

Please stay on the marked trail.