Everyone said, “You two should just date.”
Three months in, I realized something shocking: I hadn’t written a single internal monologue about our future. No fantasy wedding. No dramatic fights. No imaginary breakup to test my feelings. I was just… present.
That was it. No pickup line. No grand gesture. Just an invitation to share something small. Everyone said, “You two should just date
That was my first real lesson in romance: it rarely looks like the movies. It looks like sticky fingers and a plan that made sense only in the shower that morning.
The deepest cut wasn’t being rejected. It was being forgettable . No imaginary breakup to test my feelings
But we never did. I was too scared to ruin the friendship. She was too scared of long distance. So we orbited each other for three years—through crushes on other people, through jealous silences, through one night in my car where we almost kissed but I laughed nervously and turned on the radio instead.
And sometimes, late at night, I think about that seventeen-year-old kid holding a floor-Cinnabon, heart pounding, desperate for a story. I want to go back and tell him: You’re already in one. It’s just not the one you think. It’s better. It’s messier. It’s yours. No pickup line
I have a folder on my phone called “Cringe Archives.” In it are screenshots of my most disastrous texts. My personal favorite: “So, what’s your favorite kind of dinosaur?” Her: “lol what?” Me: “It’s a conversation starter. Mine’s velociraptor. Very underrated.” Her: “ok this is weird. bye” (For the record, velociraptors are underrated. I stand by it.)