@empty.glances: My aunt went on exactly one date with my uncle and never really stopped. I used to think that was just something older people say because they forgot the details, but I got the full story last Thanksgiving, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. They met for a coffee she didn’t even want. She’d told her roommate she’d stay for thirty minutes. They closed the place down. He walked her to her car, she went home, and the next morning he called and said “what are we doing today?” Not “hey, how’s your week going.” Not a three-day wait and a meme. Just, what are we doing today. And she said she was going to the hardware store, and he went with her. They were together basically every day after that, for thirty-eight years. There was no “so what are we” talk, because you can’t ask what you are when you’re already at the hardware store. Now look at what the rest of us are doing. We’re in month four of a talking stage with someone who still hasn’t told us their middle name. We’ve analyzed one text with three friends. We wait the right number of minutes to respond. We’re watching their story and not liking it on purpose. He says “i’m just seeing where it goes” and it goes nowhere, slowly, for ninety days, and you can’t even be sad about it when it ends because nothing officially happened. A friend of mine calls it an unpaid internship with no chance of a full-time position. And I think that’s why my aunt’s story got me. It isn’t about how fast it was. It’s that neither of them was playing anything. When someone wants you, you kind of know. It’s not confusing. They don’t leave you to decode them at 2 a.m. They show up the next morning and ask what you’re doing today. All that time you’ve spent in the gray area wondering if you’re asking for too much, you weren’t. You’ve just been auditioning for someone who already knew. Now, in fairness, my aunt would be the first to tell you that she got lucky too. Some people move fast and it’s a disaster, and rushing into someone’s life isn’t proof of anything. Love bombing looks a lot like this for the first two weeks. And plenty of good couples took their time because they were careful or had been hurt before, and slow is fine when both people are going in the same direction. But slow and unclear aren’t the same thing. So call it a hot take, but I honestly believe true lovers don’t even do talking stages. All it takes is one great date and suddenly both of you are at the hardware store together, every day.

empty glances

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Sunday 08 November 2026 22:07:16 GMT