I was standing in line at the pharmacy and the woman behind the counter called out a name that wasn't mine but I turned anyway. Some guy two registers down looked up at the same time and we made eye contact for half a second and he smiled. It was nothing. A polite automatic thing. I thought about it in the car for ten minutes. I kept replaying the half-second to see if there was something warmer in it than I caught the first time. There wasn't. I knew there wasn't. But I sat in the parking lot with the engine off checking again.
I write a text and delete it. I write it again with different punctuation. I stare at "that's fine either way" for six minutes and then I change it to "whatever works for you" and then I send "sounds good" with a period instead of an exclamation point because I don't want the exclamation point to feel like I'm trying too hard. I put the phone face down and pick it up thirty seconds later to see if he's typing. He isn't. I feel embarrassed about the thirty seconds. I feel embarrassed about caring about the thirty seconds. I put the phone in my bag and then I reach in and move it to my jacket pocket so I can feel it vibrate.
There's a guy who once remembered I hated cilantro. We were at a work lunch and he moved the bowl of salsa away from my plate without saying anything. I told three people about it that week. I still think about it sometimes when I'm chopping herbs in my kitchen. That small movement of a bowl across a table. I don't remember what we talked about that day or what he was wearing. Just the bowl moving. I think that was the moment I started keeping a mental list of proof. I started saving small things like receipts.
I smile at my phone screen when a message comes through with a thumbs up emoji. Just a thumbs up. I smile at a thumbs up like it means something. I feel my face do it and I immediately look around my empty apartment like someone might have seen me. I put the phone down and walk to the kitchen and come back and the thumbs up is still there. I open it again to see if there's more. There isn't. I sit on the edge of my couch wondering why do i want him to choose me when I haven't even decided if I like who I am around him. I haven't decided if I feel safe. I just want the wanting to be mutual so I can stop wondering.
I tell my friend I don't care at all and then I check my phone under the table while she's talking about her own problems. She asks what I'm smiling at and I say nothing and put the phone in my bag but I keep thinking about the three words he sent. I can't tell you what my friend said for the next twenty minutes. I'm too busy watching the mood of a conversation I'm not even in. I'm tracking the temperature of someone else's attention while my own life is happening right in front of me and I'm missing it. I forget what I wanted to talk about with my friend because I'm too busy calculating what his short reply means.
I find an article online when I can't sleep. I have typed how to make a man fall in love with you into the search bar because my mind won't stop circling. The page loads and I read two paragraphs and close it. I reopen it an hour later. The words feel embarrassing to look at in daylight so I only read that kind of thing at night with the brightness turned down. I save a link to another article about how do you know a man loves you and I never send it to anyone. It sits in my bookmarks like a secret. I keep going back to it not because it has answers but because someone wrote down the question I was too ashamed to say out loud. Someone admitted they didn't know either.
I sit beside him on a couch at a friend's place and I'm watching a movie but I'm not watching it at all. I'm tracking how close his arm is to mine on the cushion. I'm measuring the inches and wondering if attraction changing is something you can feel in real time or if I'm making it up. He laughs at something on screen and I laugh two seconds later even though I haven't heard the line. I'm too busy wondering if my laugh sounds natural. I don't remember the movie. I remember the couch cushion and the space between us. I remember feeling uncertain about whether I should shift closer or stay still. I stay still and then I spend the rest of the night wondering if staying still was a mistake.
I find something after getting tired of searching versions of the same question. I keep opening tabs and closing them. I keep reading the same advice dressed in different words. Then I come across something that gives shape to thoughts I can't name. I don't tell anyone I'm reading it. I read it twice and then I read it again. It isn't advice. It's more like someone describing the inside of my own room back to me.I don't save it at first. I go back three days later and find it again.
I open a video someone shared and leave halfway through. It's about signs a man is emotionally invested and I watch the first four minutes and feel exposed so I close the tab. I go back to it later for reasons I can't explain. I watch the whole thing that time with headphones on in the dark. I'm not looking for tips. I'm looking for someone to describe the thing I'm feeling without making it sound like a problem to fix. I'm looking for someone to say that noticing small things isn't crazy. That wanting to feel chosen isn't a flaw.
I reread compliments. Someone said "you're easy to talk to" six months ago and I pull that sentence out sometimes like a receipt I'm checking. I keep it longer than I should. I keep it past its expiration date. I keep it until it stops sounding like something he meant and starts sounding like something I need. I want reassurance so badly that I turn a casual sentence into evidence. I'm afraid of becoming ordinary to someone before I have even figured out if they are extraordinary to me. I'm afraid that if I'm not memorable in some specific way I'll just fade into the background of their day.
I'm at a coffee shop and I hear a man at the next table say his girlfriend's name in a certain tone. Just her name. Like it means something specific to him. I look down at my laptop and pretend to work but I'm listening to how he says it. I want emotional closeness that sounds like that. Unremarkable to everyone else but loaded if you know how to hear it. I wonder what makes someone stay interested after the new part wears off. I wonder if I have ever been said that way or if I'm always just the person waiting to be said that way. I wonder if anyone has ever listened to me say a name and felt jealous of the sound.
I keep a bookmark to an article I reopen sometimes when I feel like I'm losing my grip on what is real. Words that stayed longer than I expected. I don't read it for answers anymore. I read it to remember that someone else sat with the same confusion. I read it to feel less alone in the searching.
I change my outfit three times before a casual dinner. I put on makeup and then wipe some off so it won't look like I tried. I ask him about his day and I remember details from weeks ago that he forgot he told me. I bring them up and he looks surprised that I remember. I feel proud of that surprise. I collect those moments. I stack them like proof that I'm paying attention. I'm not paying attention to him. I'm paying attention to what my attention might earn me. I'm keeping score in a game where the other person doesn't know the rules.
I notice when his replies get shorter. I notice when he uses "hey" instead of "hi" or when he stops asking follow-up questions. I notice why attention changes before I notice that I'm starving. I'm so good at reading the temperature of someone else's mood that I forget to check my own. I sit in my car after seeing him and replay every pause and glance to see if I did something wrong. I never replay whether I felt happy. I never ask if I felt seen. I only ask if I was enough to keep him looking in my direction.
I hear my name said warmly in a crowded room and I turn around and it's not even someone I care about. It's just someone who said it like they know me. I hold onto that warmth for hours. I save it. I turn it over in my mind like a stone. I think about how I wasn't searching how to make a man fall in love with you because I wanted romance. I wanted certainty. I wanted to know that I wasn't going to disappear into the background of someone else's life. I wanted to know that my ordinary self was worth staying curious about.
I thought I wanted someone to fall in love with me. I didn't notice how much of my day had started depending on feeling chosen.