The Talking Stage
The reckless, luminous first stretch of knowing nothing about someone and wanting everything anyway.
Two Phones, No Plan
Somewhere on your phone right now is a conversation with no label and no ceiling — a match, a mutual, a someone who texted back within the hour and hasn't let up since. You don't know their middle name. You don't know if they're a morning person or a monster before coffee. You know the timestamp of their last message and the particular way your stomach does something when it arrives, and for today, that is enough information to keep going.
The Fool never had a map either, and walked off the cliff's edge smiling because the not-knowing was the whole point, not the obstacle. Let this one stay undefined a little longer. Don't rush it into a label just to feel safer holding it — the free fall is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Answer the text. Suggest the coffee. See what happens when you actually find out.
what may cross your path
- A notification lights up your lock screen and you feel your whole face change before you've even opened it.
- You reread their bio for the fourth time, hunting for a detail you somehow missed the first three.
- A friend asks 'so what IS this' and you laugh instead of answering, because you genuinely don't know yet.
- You catch yourself typing a reply, deleting it, and typing a slightly cooler version — twice.
I don't need to know where this goes. I only need to show up curious.
Three Group Chats, No Answers
It's been weeks now, and the not-knowing has curdled from thrilling into just tiring. You've screenshotted the same three texts into three different group chats, asking three different friends to translate a single lowercase 'hey' into something you can plan a future around. Nobody's cracked the code yet, mostly because there isn't one — you leapt in without checking the landing, and now you're circling the runway asking strangers for clearance.
The Fool's fall only stays graceful for so long before it just becomes falling. If you've been in the talking stage long enough to need a task force to interpret it, the conversation itself has become the problem, not the material for one. Ask them directly what this is, or accept that the silence between texts is doing the talking already.
what may cross your path
- You send a screenshot with no caption except three question marks and wait for the group chat to do the emotional labor.
- You reread the whole thread top to bottom searching for a clue you already know isn't there.
- Someone in the chat replies 'girl' and nothing else, and somehow that says everything.
- You draft a 'so where is this going' text and let it sit in your notes app instead of sending it.
The mystery was fun until it became my whole personality. I'm allowed to just ask.