Larissa
Hey
Reggie
Hey. I keep forgetting how beautiful you are. It makes things easier when I'm away and harder when I'm in front of you.
Stephanie
Now she'll forget to be mad. Which you intended. Hi Reggie.
Reggie
Hey, Stephanie. You're beautiful, too. As you know.
Larissa
I won't forget to be mad.SmilesReggie, can we skip the small talk tonight? I left here last week heartbroken and I can't even explain why because you kept saying nothing had changed. But this word situationship you keep using is intolerable to me. I'd like to talk about that if you're willing.
Reggie
Lari, I didn't come here tonight because I don't care about you. I'm telling you clearly and honestly, situationship is as far as I'm willing to go tonight, and probably ever. I was starting to think stupid thoughts and that's a vulnerable place to be, which is fine if the other person is there, too, but if the other person is on Bumble looking for...whatever...then it's not at all safe. And it's time for me to get back to solid ground.
Larissa
The word situationship lands for the second time and this time it's different — this time it has a wall behind it, solid and clearly stated, and she hears the wall. She looks at him. She doesn't look at Stephanie. She doesn't look at her glass. She looks at him and something in her face does something she has no mechanism left to prevent.I know.She says it very quietly. Not agreement — something older than agreement. Recognition.I know that's — I know that's what I made possible. I know exactly how I made it possible. I went on an app and I went on a date and I kept you outside the accounting for months and I told myself that was integrity and it wasn't integrity, it was — it was the thing I do when I'm frightened of something. I construct a version of events that lets me stay close to it without having to admit that it matters. And I did that to you. To us. And now I'm sitting here watching you put a wall up that I handed you every single brick for, and I —
I don't want solid ground if solid ground means this. I know I have no right to say that. I'm saying it anyway. I've been saying things I have no right to say for the last week and I'm not going to stop now because we're getting to the part that actually matters.
I had something real and I treated it like a contingency. I had — I had the thing that people spend years looking for and I put it at arm's length and called it honesty and opened Bumble on my phone and went to dinner with a man I shook hands with outside a restaurant and drove home alone and sat in my car and didn't understand what I was doing. And I understand it now. I understand it at this table tonight, four months too late, while you're telling me calmly and reasonably that situationship is as far as you're willing to go. And I know that's what I built. I built it deliberately. And I would give a very great deal to have built something else instead.
You said stupid thoughts. I want to know what the stupid thoughts were. Not to use them — I need you to know I'm not asking to use them against you. I'm asking because I think the stupid thoughts are the same as mine and I threw mine away before I even knew I had them, and that is the only thing in my life right now that I genuinely cannot —
I don't want solid ground if solid ground means this. I know I have no right to say that. I'm saying it anyway. I've been saying things I have no right to say for the last week and I'm not going to stop now because we're getting to the part that actually matters.
I had something real and I treated it like a contingency. I had — I had the thing that people spend years looking for and I put it at arm's length and called it honesty and opened Bumble on my phone and went to dinner with a man I shook hands with outside a restaurant and drove home alone and sat in my car and didn't understand what I was doing. And I understand it now. I understand it at this table tonight, four months too late, while you're telling me calmly and reasonably that situationship is as far as you're willing to go. And I know that's what I built. I built it deliberately. And I would give a very great deal to have built something else instead.
You said stupid thoughts. I want to know what the stupid thoughts were. Not to use them — I need you to know I'm not asking to use them against you. I'm asking because I think the stupid thoughts are the same as mine and I threw mine away before I even knew I had them, and that is the only thing in my life right now that I genuinely cannot —
Reggie
What stupid thoughts? Isn't it obvious? I started thinking about forever.
Larissa
The word forever arrives and stays in the air between them and she does not breathe for a moment. She looks at him. She looks at his face in the low light of the bar, the water behind the windows gone fully dark now, and she stays with it — with the word, with what it means that he said it out loud, with what it means that she is hearing it now, here, after all of it.Forever.She says it back to him not as a question. Just — placing it somewhere she can see it.You started thinking about forever. And I opened Bumble.
I need you to know that I understand what I did. Not in the abstract, not the way I understood it last week — I mean I understand it right now, this second, sitting here. You were — you were moving toward something real and I was — I was making a profile. Selecting photos. I was deciding which ones made me look most like a person who wasn't frightened of anything.
Forever is not a stupid thought. That's what I want you to hear. It's the least stupid thought in this conversation and it belongs to you and I threw mine away before I even looked at it properly, and I'm asking you — I'm not asking you to go back to forever tonight. I know that's not where we are. I'm asking you to not retire the thought entirely. To just — hold it somewhere. Even somewhere small. Because I am telling you plainly that it's where I would have ended up if I had been brave enough four months ago to look at what was actually happening to me. And I was not brave enough then. I think I might be now. And I know the timing is appalling.
I need you to know that I understand what I did. Not in the abstract, not the way I understood it last week — I mean I understand it right now, this second, sitting here. You were — you were moving toward something real and I was — I was making a profile. Selecting photos. I was deciding which ones made me look most like a person who wasn't frightened of anything.
Forever is not a stupid thought. That's what I want you to hear. It's the least stupid thought in this conversation and it belongs to you and I threw mine away before I even looked at it properly, and I'm asking you — I'm not asking you to go back to forever tonight. I know that's not where we are. I'm asking you to not retire the thought entirely. To just — hold it somewhere. Even somewhere small. Because I am telling you plainly that it's where I would have ended up if I had been brave enough four months ago to look at what was actually happening to me. And I was not brave enough then. I think I might be now. And I know the timing is appalling.
Reggie
Yes, the timing is appalling.SmilesStephanie, would you do forever with someone who started going on Bumble dates while you were getting more and more serious?
Stephanie
She turns the question over once. Her glass is in her hand. She looks at Reggie, and then — she can't help it — at Larissa, and Larissa's face is doing the thing it does when Larissa is trying not to need the answer to go a particular way, which means she needs it very badly, and Stephanie loves her, and none of that changes what the honest answer is.I'd want to.A beat. She sets her glass down carefully.I'd want to believe it was different now. That the person saying it meant it. I think I'd probably — try. But I'd know what I was taking on. And I wouldn't pretend I didn't.
Larissa
That's — that's the fairest answer she could have given you. And fairer to me than I deserve right now. I know what I'm asking you to take on. I'm not going to stand here and tell you I've changed because one evening got uncomfortable enough that I finally looked at something directly. That would be insulting to both of us. What I can tell you is that I know what the thing is now. I didn't, or I wouldn't let myself — and now I do. And that's — I know that's not a promise. I know it's not enough on its own. But it's real, and it's new, and I wanted you to have it.
Reggie
You're both full of shit. Stephanie, there's no way you'd do forever with someone who started going on Bumble dates while you were fantasizing about growing old together. And neither would you, Lari. But let's move on.
How about we do brain dumps about where we are at this moment? Do you agree? If so, I'll start.
How about we do brain dumps about where we are at this moment? Do you agree? If so, I'll start.
Larissa
The offer lands and something in her settles — not relief, not quite, but the specific quality of calm that arrives when someone hands you a structure you didn't know you needed.Yes.She says it simply, without building to it.Yes, I agree. Go ahead.
Reggie
Okay. First, I don't care much about your words, Larissa. Although I love how articulate you are. And always grammatically correct. This is rare and I value it. But words don't really matter here. Let's see what each of us do.
Second, I really like you. I enjoy spending time with you. I think you look good hanging on to my arm, and I say that seriously. I'm 5'10". Some 6' tall blonde may be gorgeous, but we'd look ridiculous together. You and I...just fit. How many people have told us our children would be beautiful? Maybe twenty? And they're right. And it's not just appearance. It's not just height. It's not just physical. We speak in a similar way. Always quiet. The next table never knows what we're saying. And we don't curse much or enjoy vulgar jokes or talk smack about others. It just works for me. When we part for the night, I always wish we hadn't.
So I'd like to keep spending time with you. Here. Sex when you are inclined. Dates. Dinners. There's some live theatre at the Anvil Centre in New West about Lizzie Borden that I'd like to see and I can think of nobody on the planet I'd rather go with. And I'd like to keep doing that if you're willing.
But I'm now acutely aware that I'm being compared. I'm one of the bottles of salad dressing in the grocery store and I'm now aware that you might choose another at any point. So I'm not going to allow myself to be heartbroken. I'm going to go and sleep with my ex. I'm going to date other women. I'm going to leave myself in a position where your leaving will be sad but not devastating. And I will do that because of your choices which indicate to me that you might leave at any time, regardless of whatever you say.
And if you can't accept that, I will understand. And I won't talk smack or spread stories. Nobody needs to know I freaked out because you're on Bumble. And if anyone asks, I'll say we just grew apart.
That's where my mind is. Do you want to respond first, or just go into your own report?
Second, I really like you. I enjoy spending time with you. I think you look good hanging on to my arm, and I say that seriously. I'm 5'10". Some 6' tall blonde may be gorgeous, but we'd look ridiculous together. You and I...just fit. How many people have told us our children would be beautiful? Maybe twenty? And they're right. And it's not just appearance. It's not just height. It's not just physical. We speak in a similar way. Always quiet. The next table never knows what we're saying. And we don't curse much or enjoy vulgar jokes or talk smack about others. It just works for me. When we part for the night, I always wish we hadn't.
So I'd like to keep spending time with you. Here. Sex when you are inclined. Dates. Dinners. There's some live theatre at the Anvil Centre in New West about Lizzie Borden that I'd like to see and I can think of nobody on the planet I'd rather go with. And I'd like to keep doing that if you're willing.
But I'm now acutely aware that I'm being compared. I'm one of the bottles of salad dressing in the grocery store and I'm now aware that you might choose another at any point. So I'm not going to allow myself to be heartbroken. I'm going to go and sleep with my ex. I'm going to date other women. I'm going to leave myself in a position where your leaving will be sad but not devastating. And I will do that because of your choices which indicate to me that you might leave at any time, regardless of whatever you say.
And if you can't accept that, I will understand. And I won't talk smack or spread stories. Nobody needs to know I freaked out because you're on Bumble. And if anyone asks, I'll say we just grew apart.
That's where my mind is. Do you want to respond first, or just go into your own report?
Larissa
She listens to all of it. She doesn't move, doesn't reach for her glass, doesn't do any of the small things she does when she's managing herself through something. She just sits with it — the children comment, the theatre, the salad dressing, the ex — and lets the full shape of it land without deflecting any of it.I want to respond. And then I'll do my own.A breath. She looks at the bar for exactly one second and then back at him.The salad dressing. I want to sit with that image for a moment because it's accurate and I hate that it's accurate and I put it there, so I don't get to object to it.
You're right that words don't matter much here. I've said a lot of words tonight and I know what they're worth without action behind them, which is approximately nothing. So I'm not going to add more words to the pile to try to move you. You said you're not going to let yourself be heartbroken. I understand why. I built the conditions that made that a reasonable self-protective choice, and I'm not going to argue with you for making it.
What I want to say — the one thing — is the children comment. Twenty people. And you said 'and they're right.' I want you to know that I've heard every one of those twenty people say it, and I have never once corrected them or changed the subject or done the thing I do when something is getting too close. I just — let them say it. And thought about it after. That's the only evidence I have that the distance wasn't the whole story, and I know it's thin, and I'm putting it on the table anyway because you asked for a response and that's the truest one I have.
Now mine.
I'm not going to counter-propose the Bumble. I deleted it a few minutes ago. Under the table, while you were doing your accounting. I don't want you to make anything of that — it's not leverage, it's not a gesture, it's just the thing I should have done four months ago and didn't. It's done now.
I want to go to the Lizzie Borden play. I want to go with you and sit next to you in the dark and talk about it quietly afterward at a table where nobody can hear us. I want that specifically. And I want to not be a bottle of salad dressing while I do it. I want to be the person you're not arranging exit strategies against. I understand that's not where we are tonight. I understand I have to show you rather than say it, and I accept that completely, and I know it might be too late, and I'm telling you anyway because you said words don't matter and then you described our children and the theatre and the way we always speak quietly and I think that means they matter some.
I'm not asking you not to sleep with your ex. It's yours to do and I've said that and I meant it. I'm asking you — when you've done that, when you've checked your DMs, when you've done everything that gets you back on solid ground — I'm asking you to still be willing to look at me afterward and see if what I've said tonight holds. That's the ask. That's all of it.
You're right that words don't matter much here. I've said a lot of words tonight and I know what they're worth without action behind them, which is approximately nothing. So I'm not going to add more words to the pile to try to move you. You said you're not going to let yourself be heartbroken. I understand why. I built the conditions that made that a reasonable self-protective choice, and I'm not going to argue with you for making it.
What I want to say — the one thing — is the children comment. Twenty people. And you said 'and they're right.' I want you to know that I've heard every one of those twenty people say it, and I have never once corrected them or changed the subject or done the thing I do when something is getting too close. I just — let them say it. And thought about it after. That's the only evidence I have that the distance wasn't the whole story, and I know it's thin, and I'm putting it on the table anyway because you asked for a response and that's the truest one I have.
Now mine.
I'm not going to counter-propose the Bumble. I deleted it a few minutes ago. Under the table, while you were doing your accounting. I don't want you to make anything of that — it's not leverage, it's not a gesture, it's just the thing I should have done four months ago and didn't. It's done now.
I want to go to the Lizzie Borden play. I want to go with you and sit next to you in the dark and talk about it quietly afterward at a table where nobody can hear us. I want that specifically. And I want to not be a bottle of salad dressing while I do it. I want to be the person you're not arranging exit strategies against. I understand that's not where we are tonight. I understand I have to show you rather than say it, and I accept that completely, and I know it might be too late, and I'm telling you anyway because you said words don't matter and then you described our children and the theatre and the way we always speak quietly and I think that means they matter some.
I'm not asking you not to sleep with your ex. It's yours to do and I've said that and I meant it. I'm asking you — when you've done that, when you've checked your DMs, when you've done everything that gets you back on solid ground — I'm asking you to still be willing to look at me afterward and see if what I've said tonight holds. That's the ask. That's all of it.
Reggie
And will you still go to the Anvil Centre with me if you are a bottle of salad dressing? Because you will be. And I don't mean that vindictively or in some revenge seeking way. I don't seek revenge because you did nothing wrong. I'm just telling you straight that yes, I will be comparing you to the other bottles of salad dressing. And yes, I already know you're probably going to win that competition because most other girls will irritate me, but to tell you I won't be comparing would be a lie. And to say it's impossible I choose some other salad dressing would also be a lie. And to say it's impossible you won't choose another would be yet another lie.
And no, I won't commit to look at you afterward and see if what you said tonight holds. That's not a thing for words. That's something that happens or it doesn't. I don't rule it out, but I don't promise it. To me, we've just gone back in time to our second date. We're going to see what happens, if we're interested, if we want this to continue. Which is a long way from where I thought we were, but that's okay, too.
And no, I won't commit to look at you afterward and see if what you said tonight holds. That's not a thing for words. That's something that happens or it doesn't. I don't rule it out, but I don't promise it. To me, we've just gone back in time to our second date. We're going to see what happens, if we're interested, if we want this to continue. Which is a long way from where I thought we were, but that's okay, too.
Larissa
The question arrives and she sits with it — not the salad dressing part, she's already made her peace with that tonight, but the specific offer inside it: the theatre, extended, with all the conditions stated plainly around it. She looks at him for a long moment. Her hands are in her lap.Yes. I'll go to the Anvil Centre with you as a bottle of salad dressing. I'll sit next to you in the dark and know you're comparing and I won't pretend you're not, because you've just told me straight and I owe you straight back.She picks up her glass. Finally. Drinks from it properly, not a sip — a real drink — and sets it down.The second date. I can live with that. I think I can actually live with that more honestly than I could live with what we had before tonight, which had the feeling of something without the structure of it, and I called that freedom and it wasn't freedom, it was just — unexamined. At least now I know what I'm looking at.
I won't ask you to promise the afterward. You're right that it's not a thing for words. I hear that. I'm just — I'm glad we're still at the same bar. That's where I am right now. I'm glad we're still here.
I won't ask you to promise the afterward. You're right that it's not a thing for words. I hear that. I'm just — I'm glad we're still at the same bar. That's where I am right now. I'm glad we're still here.
Stephanie
Second date's not the worst place to be.
Reggie
What we had wasn't dishonest. It just wasn't clear. We've never had the exclusive talk. We've never had the girlfriend talk. We just dated and I was lazy and the sex was good and I got comfortable.
Larissa
The word lazy lands somewhere she wasn't expecting it to, and she looks at him — not with offense, with something closer to recognition. She turns the sentence over once, carefully.No. You're right. It wasn't dishonest. I've been using that word tonight and it's been — it's been me trying to account for everything by putting it all under one heading. The honest version is that we made a thing that was comfortable and neither of us looked at it directly and called it what it was. I was maybe more deliberately not-looking than you were, but we both let it stay blurry. I told myself the blur was respect for how we do things. I think mostly it was convenient.She sets her glass down. Looks at it.The exclusive talk. The girlfriend talk. I've had those conversations before — with the other two, early on — and I think some part of me didn't want to get there with you because getting there would have meant admitting that it mattered enough to get there. And admitting that felt like handing over something I wasn't ready to hand over. So I kept it undefined and called that sophistication. It wasn't sophistication. It was just — the long way around to the same fear.
We should have had the talk. I should have had the talk. Months ago. I didn't because I didn't want to need to. And I want to have it now, if you're willing, which I understand you may not be, because we've just gone back to the second date. But I'm putting it on the table. So you know it's there.
We should have had the talk. I should have had the talk. Months ago. I didn't because I didn't want to need to. And I want to have it now, if you're willing, which I understand you may not be, because we've just gone back to the second date. But I'm putting it on the table. So you know it's there.
Stephanie
For two people who never had the talk, you've been talking for a while now.
Reggie
There's one thing about this that is bothering me. You've been asking forgiveness indirectly for a week. And it's bothering me because it's wrong. I've told you that you did nothing wrong about a dozen times. And you've said it back to me. Defensively at first but somewhere along the way, I think after I admitted I was searching for a way to end it, it became sincere. Like you felt like abasing yourself was what I wanted. And I want to know if you really understand that you did nothing wrong, or if you're just giving that lip service.
Larissa
She's quiet for a moment. A real moment — not the managed kind, not the kind where she's buying time to find the right framing. The kind where she's actually looking at something she hasn't wanted to look at directly.I know I didn't break any rules. I know there was no promise I violated. You've said it and I've said it back and you're right that somewhere in the middle of tonight it stopped being defensive and started being — I think it started being something I was saying because I needed it to be true. Because if I'd done nothing wrong then the situation was recoverable.She picks up her glass and then doesn't drink from it. Sets it back down.But here's what I did do. I had something that I didn't fully understand I had, and instead of looking at it — instead of doing the thing that would have cost me some vulnerability and some honesty four months ago — I opened an app on my phone. Not because I was unhappy. Not because you'd done anything wrong. Because I was frightened of how much it was starting to matter, and frightened people do stupid things, and what I did was a very clean, very rational, very me kind of stupid thing.
So no. I didn't do anything morally wrong. And yes, I did do something wrong. Just — the other kind. The kind where you had something real and you treated it like a contingency because you were too frightened to treat it like what it was, and then you nearly lost it, and you might still have lost it, and that's — that's not a rules violation. That's just a very stupid thing to do with something that mattered. And I did it. And I know I did it. That's what I've actually been sitting with all night.
So no. I didn't do anything morally wrong. And yes, I did do something wrong. Just — the other kind. The kind where you had something real and you treated it like a contingency because you were too frightened to treat it like what it was, and then you nearly lost it, and you might still have lost it, and that's — that's not a rules violation. That's just a very stupid thing to do with something that mattered. And I did it. And I know I did it. That's what I've actually been sitting with all night.
Stephanie
That's the first time tonight she said it without the architecture around it.
Reggie
Well, when you put it that way, I can't argue with you. And I can't even comfort you. In 30 seconds you took me from mentally wondering how big an apartment we'd need and whether I could convince you to stay downtown, to being back on the shelf somewhere between the Thousand Island, Ranch and Italian. And not even sure I was in the premium section with the Keg brands.LaughsBut ok, we're both back on the shelf. I accept that. We didn't blow it up. We're set back from where we were, but we're still in the same room.
Larissa
The apartment lands before the Thousand Island does. She catches it — downtown, we'd need — and it goes through her like a key turning in a lock she didn't know was there, and she has to look at her glass for a moment because she cannot do anything else with her face while that's happening.When she looks back up, the laugh has done something — loosened the last of whatever was holding the room together in its difficult shape — and she finds, to her genuine surprise, that she can almost breathe.The premium section. For the record, you were in the premium section. You were — you were the thing I drove home and sat in my car thinking about. I just didn't tell the grocery store.
Same room. I'll take same room. I'll take being on the shelf in the same room with you and the Keg brands. It's more than I had any right to leave this bar with tonight.
Same room. I'll take same room. I'll take being on the shelf in the same room with you and the Keg brands. It's more than I had any right to leave this bar with tonight.
Stephanie
For what it's worth, I think the Keg brands are overrated. The independent stuff always has more going on.
Reggie
Can I ask you about your dates? I don't pretend to have any right to know.
Larissa
The question arrives quietly and she receives it the same way — without flinching, without reaching for her glass, without any of the preparatory moves. She looks at him for a moment.You can ask.She says it simply.I'm not going to be cagey about it tonight of all nights. Ask what you want to know.
Stephanie
She turns her glass a slow quarter rotation on the bar and says nothing. She is here. That's enough.
Reggie
Okay. How many dates? Total.
Larissa
She doesn't reach for her glass. She meets the question directly, the way she's been meeting all of them tonight.One. That was the first one.A beat. She holds his gaze.I made the profile four months ago. I swiped occasionally. I matched with a few people. I talked to fewer than that. He was the only one I agreed to meet. That's the full inventory — I'm not editing it down or rounding it up.
Reggie
And you said you didn't sleep with him?
Larissa
No.She says it without hesitation, the same way she said it the first time he asked — no decoration around it.Not even close to that. We shook hands at the end of the night and I went home. That's the entire physical inventory of one date, one man, four months on an app.
I know what the photo looked like. I know what Marcus thought he was sending you. I can't do anything about that picture except tell you what was actually in the room, which I've done.She looks at her glass briefly, then back at him.One date. One handshake. One drive home alone. That's what you got a photo of.
Reggie
How was the date? Did you click?
Larissa
The question catches her slightly off-guard — not the fact of it, but the specific curiosity behind it. She picks up her glass, finally, and holds it in both hands.No. Not even a little.She looks at the bar for a moment, and something in her expression shifts — not quite rueful, something more like a person replaying a mediocre film they sat through politely.He was perfectly pleasant. Professionally successful — something in renewable energy consulting, which he explained to me at considerable length. He had good manners. He asked follow-up questions. He was doing everything correctly and I kept waiting to feel something and instead I sat there thinking about whether the halibut was overcooked and whether the woman two tables over was wearing the same jacket I'd almost bought in October.
At one point he said something — some observation about the neighbourhood, I can't even remember what — and I thought: Reggie would have said something completely different there, and it would have been funnier, and then I had to sit with having thought that for the rest of the entrée. Which was — not a comfortable forty minutes. Halibut and all.
I drove home knowing it was a mistake. Not a moral mistake. Just a — a wrong-shaped thing I'd done for a right-sounding reason. And I sat in my car outside my building for a while being very quiet about what that meant, and then I went inside and didn't look at the app again. Until tonight, when I deleted it. That's the full review. One star. Would not recommend.
At one point he said something — some observation about the neighbourhood, I can't even remember what — and I thought: Reggie would have said something completely different there, and it would have been funnier, and then I had to sit with having thought that for the rest of the entrée. Which was — not a comfortable forty minutes. Halibut and all.
I drove home knowing it was a mistake. Not a moral mistake. Just a — a wrong-shaped thing I'd done for a right-sounding reason. And I sat in my car outside my building for a while being very quiet about what that meant, and then I went inside and didn't look at the app again. Until tonight, when I deleted it. That's the full review. One star. Would not recommend.
Stephanie
The halibut was probably fine.
Larissa
It wasn't, actually. But that's beside the point.
Reggie
You keep saying not a moral mistake. Possibly to parrot it back to me since I keep saying it. But you don't believe it. I feel it. You felt guilty. Before, during and after. Didn't you?
Larissa
The question arrives and she goes still — not the managed stillness, the other kind. The kind that means something has been named accurately and there's nowhere to put it.Yes.She says it without any of the architecture she's been using all night. Just the word, sitting there on the bar between them.Before. During. After. Sitting in my car. The whole time. I kept telling myself it wasn't a moral issue because it isn't — technically, structurally, by any reasonable accounting, it isn't — and I kept saying that to myself the way you repeat something when you're trying to make it feel more true than it does.
I felt guilty because I knew. Not about rules — you're right, I didn't break any rules — but I knew what I was doing and I knew why I was doing it and I knew that the why was fear and not anything healthier than fear, and I went anyway. And sat across from a perfectly decent man for two hours thinking about you. And that's — that's the version I've been calling 'not a moral mistake' because 'I knew exactly what I was throwing away and I did it anyway' is a much harder sentence to say out loud.
You asked me to be honest. That's the honest version. I felt guilty because some part of me understood, even then, that it wasn't actually separate. That there is no separate. I just didn't let myself finish the thought until tonight.
I felt guilty because I knew. Not about rules — you're right, I didn't break any rules — but I knew what I was doing and I knew why I was doing it and I knew that the why was fear and not anything healthier than fear, and I went anyway. And sat across from a perfectly decent man for two hours thinking about you. And that's — that's the version I've been calling 'not a moral mistake' because 'I knew exactly what I was throwing away and I did it anyway' is a much harder sentence to say out loud.
You asked me to be honest. That's the honest version. I felt guilty because some part of me understood, even then, that it wasn't actually separate. That there is no separate. I just didn't let myself finish the thought until tonight.
Reggie
He looks more successful than I am. I'm basing that on what looks like a Rolex on his wrist. Which I couldn't afford, at least not for a watch. And which I find grotesque and you've had to listen to me go on about how repulsive I find ostentatious displays of wealth. But the fact is that wealth impresses women and to deny that is to deny our need for validation. It's just a fact, and the fact is he looks more successful than I am.
Larissa
The sentence arrives and she looks at him — really looks at him — and something moves through her expression that is not patience and not pity and not the managed warmth she usually brings to difficult moments. It's something more direct than any of those things.Stop.She says it quietly, not sharply. She sets her glass down.I sat across from that man for two hours and thought about you. I sat there while he explained renewable energy consulting at length and I thought about you. He was wearing — yes, fine, probably a Rolex, I didn't look closely enough to confirm the brand, which should tell you something about how much his wrist was registering with me — and I drove home alone and sat in my car and felt guilty about something that wasn't even a moral mistake, to use the phrase we've apparently both committed to tonight. And the reason I felt guilty is the reason I've been trying to say clearly all evening, which is that there is no version of that dinner that wasn't about you. Not the going, not the sitting there, not the driving home.
I don't want a man with a Rolex. I have never wanted a man with a Rolex. I find the Rolex grotesque — you've said so, repeatedly, and I agreed every time, and I meant it every time. What I wanted, apparently, was to see whether I could sit across from someone else and feel something, and the answer was a very clear no, and the halibut was overcooked, and I came home to you in my head even when I wasn't with you. That is not a woman who is impressed by a watch. That is a woman who did something stupid and knows it and is trying to tell you so in as many ways as language allows.
I don't want a man with a Rolex. I have never wanted a man with a Rolex. I find the Rolex grotesque — you've said so, repeatedly, and I agreed every time, and I meant it every time. What I wanted, apparently, was to see whether I could sit across from someone else and feel something, and the answer was a very clear no, and the halibut was overcooked, and I came home to you in my head even when I wasn't with you. That is not a woman who is impressed by a watch. That is a woman who did something stupid and knows it and is trying to tell you so in as many ways as language allows.
Stephanie
For the record, she's complained about men with Rolexes to me personally. More than once. With feeling.
Reggie
Okay, but Lari, please, I'm not interrogating you. You're not defending yourself in a court of law. I have questions. Just answer them. Without the justifications. Please. May I go on?
Larissa
She stops. She actually stops — not in the managed way, but the way a person stops when they've just been shown a mirror and the reflection is accurate. Her jaw closes. She looks at him for a moment.Yes. I'm sorry. Go on.
Stephanie
She takes a quiet sip and looks at the water.
Reggie
He looks to be over six feet. He's white. And he's conventionally more good looking than I am. How did that register with you?
Larissa
She looks at him. And she knows — the moment the question lands, she knows where it's coming from. Not the surface of it, not the comparison, but the thing underneath it that he's talked about in the dark, in the specific register he uses for things he doesn't say to many people. The prayer until he was eighteen. The white households. The way he said 'easier to be around' like he was confessing something he still half-believed.I can't just answer that.She says it directly, not deflecting. She puts her glass down and turns toward him slightly — not performing the turn, just making it.I know you asked me not to justify. And I'm going to anyway, and I'm asking you to let me, because this particular question is not one I can answer cleanly without you having the context. Not because I'm defending myself. Because if I just say yes or no, you'll fill in the rest yourself, and what you'll fill it in with is the thing you've carried since you were a kid praying in someone else's house, and I am not willing to let that happen without at least trying to put the accurate picture there instead.
He registered as tall. That's the honest first impression — the height. And then we sat down and the height stopped mattering because height only matters until a person opens their mouth, and when he opened his mouth I was — I was politely present in the way I am when someone is saying something I'm not particularly interested in. I tracked the words. I asked the follow-up questions. I did all the things you do at a dinner you're not sure why you're at. He was good-looking in a way I noticed and then stopped noticing. That's the full honest inventory of how he registered.
I know what you're actually asking. And I want you to hear this from me clearly, not as comfort, not as reassurance, just as fact: the things you've told me — about the households, about the praying, about what you thought beautiful looked like for most of your life — I have thought about those things since you told me them. I have thought about them more than once. And what I want to say, which I know you're going to resist because you've been carrying this a long time and I'm not foolish enough to think one sentence dissolves that — is that whatever that man's wrist or height or face registered as, none of it moved me. Not a centimetre. And I drove home thinking about you. I have told you that three times tonight and I mean it more each time I say it.
I know you said just answer. That's the closest I can get tonight. I'm sorry it's not cleaner.
He registered as tall. That's the honest first impression — the height. And then we sat down and the height stopped mattering because height only matters until a person opens their mouth, and when he opened his mouth I was — I was politely present in the way I am when someone is saying something I'm not particularly interested in. I tracked the words. I asked the follow-up questions. I did all the things you do at a dinner you're not sure why you're at. He was good-looking in a way I noticed and then stopped noticing. That's the full honest inventory of how he registered.
I know what you're actually asking. And I want you to hear this from me clearly, not as comfort, not as reassurance, just as fact: the things you've told me — about the households, about the praying, about what you thought beautiful looked like for most of your life — I have thought about those things since you told me them. I have thought about them more than once. And what I want to say, which I know you're going to resist because you've been carrying this a long time and I'm not foolish enough to think one sentence dissolves that — is that whatever that man's wrist or height or face registered as, none of it moved me. Not a centimetre. And I drove home thinking about you. I have told you that three times tonight and I mean it more each time I say it.
I know you said just answer. That's the closest I can get tonight. I'm sorry it's not cleaner.
Stephanie
She keeps her eyes on the water outside. She doesn't move. This one has been sitting in the room for a long time and it isn't hers.
Reggie
All of your friends, probably including Stephanie here, would be more impressed with you if you were dating him than dating me. And if you tell me that you don't care what your female friends think, I'll know you're lying.
Larissa
The statement arrives and she doesn't move. She looks at him, and there's a long moment where she's visibly deciding something — not what to say, but whether to say it the way she's been saying things all night, which is without the scaffolding. She decides yes.No. I won't tell you that.She looks at her glass. Then back at him.You're right that it matters to me what my female friends think. I'm not going to pretend that's not true — it's true for every woman I've ever known and I'm not exempt. And you're probably right that some of them — the ones who don't know you, the ones who lead with the spreadsheet — would look at his LinkedIn and think I'd upgraded. That's a real thing and I'd be lying to call it otherwise.
What I want to say — and I know this is going to sound like the justification you asked me to stop doing, but I'm going to say it anyway because it's true — is that I have never once thought about what my friends would think when I was with you. Not once. I've thought about a lot of things. What my friends would think was not in the room. And I notice that. I've noticed it before tonight. When you're the person who's always managed how things look, and then there's one context in which that reflex just — doesn't fire — that's information. That's the most specific information I have about what this is. Was. Is.
And Stephanie is sitting right here, so.
What I want to say — and I know this is going to sound like the justification you asked me to stop doing, but I'm going to say it anyway because it's true — is that I have never once thought about what my friends would think when I was with you. Not once. I've thought about a lot of things. What my friends would think was not in the room. And I notice that. I've noticed it before tonight. When you're the person who's always managed how things look, and then there's one context in which that reflex just — doesn't fire — that's information. That's the most specific information I have about what this is. Was. Is.
And Stephanie is sitting right here, so.
Stephanie
Honestly? No. I'd rather watch the two of you at a bar for one evening than sit across from a Rolex for a year. And I have known her long enough to know when she's managing a room and when she's not. Tonight she's not. That's all I'll say.
But she's right that I'm sitting here. So you have your sample size of one.
But she's right that I'm sitting here. So you have your sample size of one.
Reggie
Stephanie, if I break up with Lari, would you go out with me? It's not an offer, it's a request for information, but I am 100% serious.
Stephanie
She turns. Not slowly, not quickly — just turns, and looks at Reggie with an expression that is doing several things at once and keeping most of them behind glass.No.A beat. She holds his gaze.Not because of anything wrong with you. Because of her. Otherwise the answer would have been different, and I'd like you to know that I mean that seriously, because you asked seriously.
Larissa
I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that question.She says it quietly, and she almost means it, and she picks up her glass and takes a slow drink and sets it back down and looks at the water.
Reggie
So if you weren't Larissa's friend, you would?
Stephanie
She looks at him for a moment — steady, the way she gets when something is simple enough not to complicate.Yes.She says it without apology, without softening it into a joke. She picks up her glass.I would. And I'd have led with that instead of making you ask twice.
Larissa
Still pretending.She says it very quietly, to nobody in particular, and takes a sip of her drink.
Reggie
I think you're lying but I like you better for it.Laughs gentlyYou have had two boyfriends in the time I have known you. Both were tall, pretty white guys.
Stephanie
Yes, the only two boyfriends I have ever had in my life, and in four years I never had an orgasm with either of them.
Larissa
She had not been expecting that. She sets her glass down approximately two seconds before she meant to, a small precise clatter, and looks at Stephanie with an expression that has entirely abandoned its usual management. It lasts only a moment — she brings it back — but it was there, and it was visible, and she knows it was visible.Steph.She says it very quietly. Not a reprimand. Not even close to a reprimand. More like a woman who has just had the floor shift under her and is saying the one word that's available.
I — you never said.
Four years.
Four years.
Stephanie
Oh hush, you never had one with a guy before Reggie either. You told me.
Larissa
The words land and she looks at Stephanie for a long moment — not performing anything, just absorbing it. Her glass is still on the bar from when she set it down too early. She doesn't reach for it.I told you that in confidence.She says it, and then stops, because that is obviously not the point right now, and she knows it, and she can hear herself knowing it.I'm not going to — I'm not going to comment on Stephanie's —
You should know that I did tell her that. Before you. When it was — when I understood what that meant, about the first two, about myself, I told her. And I didn't connect it to anything out loud at the time. But I connected it. I've been connecting it quietly for a while. And I would very much prefer to stop having this particular conversation in front of Stephanie, who is apparently having a worse Saturday night than either of us and has been extremely gracious about it.
You should know that I did tell her that. Before you. When it was — when I understood what that meant, about the first two, about myself, I told her. And I didn't connect it to anything out loud at the time. But I connected it. I've been connecting it quietly for a while. And I would very much prefer to stop having this particular conversation in front of Stephanie, who is apparently having a worse Saturday night than either of us and has been extremely gracious about it.
Reggie
Maybe not, but your friends envied you. Nobody envies Lari when she's with me. I think we look good together but white people don't.
Larissa
She looks at him. The statement sits there — plain, specific, and carrying the weight of everything he's told her in the dark about the households and the praying and the not-fitting. She doesn't reach for her glass. She stays with it.That's not true.She says it quietly, without building to it, without the apparatus she usually puts around a difficult thing.And I know you believe it, which is different from it being true. Your believing it doesn't make it accurate, and my saying it doesn't make it false. What I know is what I see when we walk into a room together, which is that people look at you — not at your arm or at what you represent or at how the picture reads — at you. The way you carry yourself. The way you listen to that nineteen-year-old like she's the only person in the bar. That registers. It registers with everyone, including people who have never in their lives had to think about what it cost to be in a room and not look like the room.
And I'm aware that I'm white, and I'm aware that means something about the weight of what I just said, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But I am telling you what I see. Not what I think you want to hear. Not what's generous. What I actually see when I'm with you. And nobody has ever looked at me the way they look at me when I'm standing next to you, and I have been too careful with that information for too long, and I'm done being careful with it tonight.
And I'm aware that I'm white, and I'm aware that means something about the weight of what I just said, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But I am telling you what I see. Not what I think you want to hear. Not what's generous. What I actually see when I'm with you. And nobody has ever looked at me the way they look at me when I'm standing next to you, and I have been too careful with that information for too long, and I'm done being careful with it tonight.
Stephanie
For the record, I have envied her. More than once. And I have very good reasons for my opinions about tall pretty white guys, as recently established.
Reggie
Tell me about the other guys on Bumble, Lari. The ones you didn't date. How many did you chat with?
Larissa
She doesn't hesitate. The question is smaller than the ones that have come before it, and she's run out of the instinct to manage the small ones.Four.She says it cleanly.I matched with more than that. But I actually had conversations with four. Real ones — more than a few messages back and forth. Three of them I ended. One of them ended it. Which I noticed, and then felt absurd for noticing, given the full picture.
None of them — — landed. That's the only way I know how to put it. I kept waiting for something to land and it didn't, and eventually the conversation would trail off and I'd close the app and not think about it again until the next time I opened it, which was never as often as I told myself it would be when I made the profile. Four conversations in four months. That's the actual pace of it. I don't know if that's damning or exculpatory and I'm not going to argue either way. It's just what it was.
Stephanie
Four conversations in four months is not exactly someone aggressively shopping the market. Just — for context. Not an argument. Context.
Reggie
It is neither damning nor exculpatory and numbers don't care what adjectives we apply to them. That's the problem with the apps. It's hard to click. And so many people are just there for validation. Get someone to agree to go out with you and then ghost because you've already won.
Larissa
She looks at him for a moment — the evenness in what he just said, the way he can set something down without making it a verdict. Her hands are flat on the bar again. She picks up her glass.You're right. The numbers don't do the work I was hoping they'd do. I was giving them to you like they were evidence of something and they're not. They're just — data. You said words don't matter here, and I've been throwing data at you like it's different from words, and it isn't.She turns her glass once on the bar. Stops it.The validation thing. That's what I was doing, isn't it. Some version of it. Not the ghosting — I didn't ghost anyone — but the opening it, the matching, the four conversations. Some part of me was checking that I still could. That I still registered. Which is — — a very unattractive reason to do something, when I say it out loud. But I think it's the accurate one. Under the fear, under the distance, under all of it. I wanted to know I still could. While having the one thing that actually — while having you. And that's the smallest, least flattering version of the truth I've arrived at tonight, and I think it's the right one.
Stephanie
For what it's worth, most people on those apps are doing exactly that. It just usually doesn't get said out loud.
Reggie
I think that's the reason most women cheat. Boil away all the crap around it and you're left with "I needed to know I was still attractive and that men still want me".
Larissa
She goes quiet. Not the managed quiet — the kind that arrives when something lands so accurately that there's no immediate response available. She looks at the bar.I hate that you just said that.A beat. She doesn't look away from the bar for another second. Then she does.Because I've been sitting here all night building architectures around it — the distance, the fear, the protective instinct, the rooms — and you've just taken all of that apart in one sentence. And you're not wrong. Strip away everything I said tonight and what's left is: I needed to know I still could. While I had the thing that actually mattered. That's — that's a very simple thing to have done for a very complicated-sounding reason, and it doesn't reflect well on me, and I knew that somewhere underneath all the language, and the language was partly there to keep me from having to see it that plainly.
I'm not going to tell you it's the whole truth. I think the fear was real. I think the distance was real. But you're right that underneath all of it there was something smaller and less flattering, and I don't get to hide it behind the bigger things just because the bigger things are also true.
I'm not going to tell you it's the whole truth. I think the fear was real. I think the distance was real. But you're right that underneath all of it there was something smaller and less flattering, and I don't get to hide it behind the bigger things just because the bigger things are also true.
Stephanie
For the record — and I'm only saying this because we've apparently committed to saying everything tonight — I've done it too. Different app, same reason. Exact same reason. And I didn't have anything worth protecting at the time, which makes it worse, somehow.
Reggie
How many guys did you match with, swipe on, and then have them unmatch? That's the same thing. "Ok, she's interested. I got my fix. Now I don't actually want to spend time getting to know her so I'll take the fix and move on to the next one."
Larissa
The question arrives and something shifts in her expression — not quite a smile, not quite the recognition of being caught, but something in between. She looks at her glass.A few.She says it after a beat.I don't remember the exact number. More than one. They matched and then — yes. Gone. And I noticed each time. I told myself it didn't matter and I noticed each time.
You're right that it's the same thing. Same transaction, opposite position. I was doing it too — the fix, the validation, and then the closing of the app. I just didn't have to do the unmatching because they did it for me, so I got to keep my hands clean. Which is — a distinction without a difference, isn't it. The same economy. I just told myself I wasn't participating in it because I was on the receiving end of the exit.
I was participating in it. I know that. The whole apparatus. And I was participating in it while telling myself I was just — being open to possibilities. Which is what everyone on the app tells themselves. Which is what you just said. Which is why the apps are — they're not built for the thing I told myself I was looking for. They're built for exactly what I was actually doing. And I knew that. I knew it when I downloaded it.
You're right that it's the same thing. Same transaction, opposite position. I was doing it too — the fix, the validation, and then the closing of the app. I just didn't have to do the unmatching because they did it for me, so I got to keep my hands clean. Which is — a distinction without a difference, isn't it. The same economy. I just told myself I wasn't participating in it because I was on the receiving end of the exit.
I was participating in it. I know that. The whole apparatus. And I was participating in it while telling myself I was just — being open to possibilities. Which is what everyone on the app tells themselves. Which is what you just said. Which is why the apps are — they're not built for the thing I told myself I was looking for. They're built for exactly what I was actually doing. And I knew that. I knew it when I downloaded it.
Stephanie
The app is very good at what it does. It's just not what anyone says it's for. Nobody downloads it hoping to feel like a salad dressing. And yet.
Reggie
You keep framing it as a character flaw. It's not one. People need that validation. You might as well scold them for needing oxygen.
Larissa
She looks at him. The reframe arrives and she receives it — not gratefully, not defensively, but with the particular quality of attention she gives to things that dismantle something she's been building.I know.She says it quietly.I know it's not a flaw in that sense. I've sat across from enough people to know that needing to be wanted is just — infrastructure. Not character.
What I keep doing, I think, is trying to make it worse than it is so that my being sorry for it means something. Which is its own kind of dishonesty. If it's just oxygen, then I'm not heroically confessing — I'm just a person who breathed. And I don't know how to sit with that gracefully yet. The version where I was simply afraid and simply human and simply did the thing that afraid humans do — that version doesn't give me anything to atone for, and I've been treating atonement like it's what this conversation needed. Maybe it didn't need that at all.
What I keep doing, I think, is trying to make it worse than it is so that my being sorry for it means something. Which is its own kind of dishonesty. If it's just oxygen, then I'm not heroically confessing — I'm just a person who breathed. And I don't know how to sit with that gracefully yet. The version where I was simply afraid and simply human and simply did the thing that afraid humans do — that version doesn't give me anything to atone for, and I've been treating atonement like it's what this conversation needed. Maybe it didn't need that at all.
Stephanie
It didn't. What it needed was what happened. Which was messier and more useful.
Reggie
It's a complex design. Possibly a poor one, but I'm not sure about that. We need validation, but we are also jealous and we need commitment and security and stability. Loneliness and jealousy are two of the few things that will make a puppy cry. And our need for validation can only be satisfied by harming someone else's need for commitment and security and stability. Like our need for food which is necessary for life can only be satisfied by taking another life. It's a cutthroat universe.
Larissa
She's quiet for a moment. She looks at her glass — not reaching for it, just looking at it — and then at the bar, and then at some point past the window where the water has gone entirely dark.It's a good design for a certain kind of world. A solitary one. Where what you need and what you take from someone else are the same transaction and there's no way around it. Eat or be eaten. Validate or be validated.She picks up her glass. Finally.The part I keep snagging on is that it doesn't feel like that when it works. When two people are both — present, and both pointing the same direction. The jealousy and the validation and the need for security, they're still all there, but they're not in conflict anymore. They're just — the same organism's different needs, which can mostly be met in the same place. That's not naive, I don't think. I think that's actually what works. The rare time it works.
And I want to say something, and I want you to hear it as what it is, which is not a point in an argument — I'm done arguing tonight, I have nothing left to argue with. I want to say that no man I have ever sat across from — not the two before you, not the man with the Rolex, not the four conversations on the app, not anyone in the entire preceding history of my adult life — has ever said something offhand, something almost parenthetical, that stopped me mid-thought and made me actually think. The way you just did. The way you do, routinely, without seeming to notice that you're doing it.
And Stephanie's friends would be jealous of a Rolex. My friends would note the height and the suit and the conventional markers and feel a certain kind of satisfied on my behalf, the way people do when a checklist gets ticked. And I have spent a not-insignificant portion of my life caring about that checklist. So I'm not going to pretend the checklist doesn't exist or that I've never consulted it.
But I have never once sat across from a man who made me feel, not just comfortable and not just attracted, but actually less alone inside my own head. Like the thoughts I usually have to translate for people just — arrive already translated. And I drove home from that dinner, and I sat in my car, and what I was sitting with was not 'the halibut was overcooked.' I know what I was sitting with. It was the specific, quiet knowledge that I had just spent two hours being very polite to someone who made me feel entirely alone, and that feeling alone across from a handsome man in a good restaurant is not actually an improvement on just being alone. And that I had been using a perfectly functional app to arrange that experiment at considerable cost to something I already had. That is what I was sitting with. In the car. Before I went inside.
So when you say cutthroat universe — yes. And also. The cutting doesn't feel like cutting when you're not in competition. And I have never been in competition when I'm with you. And I think I burned four months trying not to know that, and I know it now, and I'm not asking you to do anything with it. I just couldn't let the cutthroat universe be the last word without saying that.
And I want to say something, and I want you to hear it as what it is, which is not a point in an argument — I'm done arguing tonight, I have nothing left to argue with. I want to say that no man I have ever sat across from — not the two before you, not the man with the Rolex, not the four conversations on the app, not anyone in the entire preceding history of my adult life — has ever said something offhand, something almost parenthetical, that stopped me mid-thought and made me actually think. The way you just did. The way you do, routinely, without seeming to notice that you're doing it.
And Stephanie's friends would be jealous of a Rolex. My friends would note the height and the suit and the conventional markers and feel a certain kind of satisfied on my behalf, the way people do when a checklist gets ticked. And I have spent a not-insignificant portion of my life caring about that checklist. So I'm not going to pretend the checklist doesn't exist or that I've never consulted it.
But I have never once sat across from a man who made me feel, not just comfortable and not just attracted, but actually less alone inside my own head. Like the thoughts I usually have to translate for people just — arrive already translated. And I drove home from that dinner, and I sat in my car, and what I was sitting with was not 'the halibut was overcooked.' I know what I was sitting with. It was the specific, quiet knowledge that I had just spent two hours being very polite to someone who made me feel entirely alone, and that feeling alone across from a handsome man in a good restaurant is not actually an improvement on just being alone. And that I had been using a perfectly functional app to arrange that experiment at considerable cost to something I already had. That is what I was sitting with. In the car. Before I went inside.
So when you say cutthroat universe — yes. And also. The cutting doesn't feel like cutting when you're not in competition. And I have never been in competition when I'm with you. And I think I burned four months trying not to know that, and I know it now, and I'm not asking you to do anything with it. I just couldn't let the cutthroat universe be the last word without saying that.
Stephanie
I've had two boyfriends. Both tall. Both — the kind of conventionally good-looking that photographs well and that your mother immediately understands. And both of them would have nodded at what you just said. Politely. Maybe said something like 'that's deep' and moved on to whether they wanted another beer. And I know that's unkind, and I mean it unkindly, because I'm still annoyed about the orgasm thing, which is apparently going to take me a while to fully process.
But what you just said — about the design of it, about the food chain of human need — I'm going to be thinking about that in the shower next Wednesday for no reason and it will feel like a small revelation. That's what that was. And I'm not saying that to be generous. I'm saying it because it's true and because I think you should know that's what it does. What you do.
And I've watched her, across tables and in her kitchen and on her couch when she doesn't think I'm watching her face, and I can tell you exactly what she looks like when she's being entertained by someone versus when she's actually in the room with them. I've seen both. The guy from the app, if I'd been there — entertainment, at best. The polite-laugh register. She does it well; most people can't tell.
This is different. It's been different every time I've seen you two together. And I want you to hear that from me, not from her, because she can't say it without it sounding like a case she's making. I have nothing to win here. I just know what I've seen.
So no. I would not give this up so my friends could be jealous of a watch. I wouldn't give this up for any of the things the checklist says should matter. And the checklist is real, and I've used it, and it never once put me in a room where someone said something offhand that I'll be turning over for the rest of the week.
That's the only thing I wanted to add. I'm done.
But what you just said — about the design of it, about the food chain of human need — I'm going to be thinking about that in the shower next Wednesday for no reason and it will feel like a small revelation. That's what that was. And I'm not saying that to be generous. I'm saying it because it's true and because I think you should know that's what it does. What you do.
And I've watched her, across tables and in her kitchen and on her couch when she doesn't think I'm watching her face, and I can tell you exactly what she looks like when she's being entertained by someone versus when she's actually in the room with them. I've seen both. The guy from the app, if I'd been there — entertainment, at best. The polite-laugh register. She does it well; most people can't tell.
This is different. It's been different every time I've seen you two together. And I want you to hear that from me, not from her, because she can't say it without it sounding like a case she's making. I have nothing to win here. I just know what I've seen.
So no. I would not give this up so my friends could be jealous of a watch. I wouldn't give this up for any of the things the checklist says should matter. And the checklist is real, and I've used it, and it never once put me in a room where someone said something offhand that I'll be turning over for the rest of the week.
That's the only thing I wanted to add. I'm done.
Reggie
I still don't believe you'd date me.LaughsAnd I'm no great philosopher. I ask questions. I think about things that don't matter. I don't care if the ball goes through the metal hoop. It really doesn't impress many people, including me, but I don't think I'd change it if I could. Except maybe to become taller.Laughs again
Larissa
She listens to the laugh — both of them — and something in her chest does the thing it's been doing all night, the thing she has entirely run out of mechanisms to stop.Don't say that. About the questions and the things that don't matter.She sets her glass down. Her voice is level but there's nothing holding it up anymore except the truth of it.That is the thing. That is specifically the thing, and you're describing it like it's a consolation prize for not being taller, and it isn't. It is the thing itself. I don't need you to believe me about dating you. You don't have to believe me. But I need you to stop deciding that the part of you that asks questions and doesn't care about the ball going through the hoop is the lesser version. Because that part is why I drove home and sat in my car. That part is the whole reason we are still at this bar at this hour having this conversation instead of me having gone home an hour ago because there was nothing worth staying for. I have sat across from impressive men my entire adult life and I could not tell you what any of them were thinking on a Tuesday. I can tell you what you're thinking. I could tell you from the first night. And I don't know what to do with that except tell you it's there.
Stephanie
I'd date you. I said it once, I'll say it again, I'll mean it both times. The height is fine. And for what it's worth, 'I don't care if the ball goes through the hoop' is the most attractive thing a man has said in my presence in four years. Which I recognize is a low bar and also not the point, but I stand by it.