I had constructed an entire narrative in my head. The plot went like this: I would buy the Cinnabon, walk over with casual confidence, say something witty like, “I heard you had a weakness,” she would smile, her friends would melt into the background, and we’d share the pastry like two characters in a Wong Kar-wai film.
I want to tell you about my awkward adventure through relationships and romantic storylines—not the highlight reel, but the blooper reel. The one where I tripped, misread every signal, fell for the wrong people at the wrong times, and somehow, in the wreckage, learned what love actually feels like. Let’s stay with that moment for a second, because it’s emblematic of my entire romantic education. I had constructed an entire narrative in my head
The deepest cut wasn’t being rejected. It was being forgettable . The one where I tripped, misread every signal,
You are holding it. Sweating. The cream cheese icing is melting down your knuckles. She is twenty feet away, laughing with her friends. You are not walking toward her. You are frozen. You are a statue of bad decisions. It was being forgettable
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.
There’s a specific kind of cringe that lives in your chest when you’re sixteen, standing in a mall food court, holding a Cinnabon you don’t even like, because the girl you have a crush on mentioned once— once —that she “likes the smell.”
That’s the trap of awkward adolescence. We mistake narrative hunger for real feeling. You know the one. The person you never officially dated, but who occupied more mental real estate than anyone you actually kissed. For me, it was a friend from summer camp named Alex. We wrote letters. Letters. With stamps and everything. We’d stay up late on the phone until the cord got twisted around my bedroom door.