To love is to be vulnerable.

Not deep.

Not tragic.

Ridiculous.

They claim liking someone

is complicated.

That relationships are confusing,

fragile, mysterious things.

They are not.

The truth is so simple

people panic when they see it.

You either want someone

or you want something else.

That’s it.

But people cannot speak

in that language.

So the performance begins.

I really like you.

A promising sentence.

Almost honest.

But then it bends.

I’m just not in the right place.

What place?

You are sitting

right here.

You are alive,

you have a phone,

you have free evenings,

you have the ability

to say yes or no.

But clarity

terrifies people.

Because the real sentence

would sound like this:

I like you.

But I want something else.

Maybe someone else.

Maybe freedom.

Maybe attention from five different directions.

Maybe the thrill of endless possibility.

Whatever it is

they want it

more than they want you.

And that would be fine.

Almost respectable.

Except people refuse

to say it.

Instead they start speaking

in the strangest dialect

modern dating has invented.

The timing is weird.

I’m figuring things out.

I don’t want to lead you on.

I’m scared to ruin what we have.

All these sentences

circling the same

very ordinary truth.

They want something else.

But instead of saying it

like an adult,

they hide behind foggy language

and hope you politely

decode it.

Which is why dating

sometimes feels less like romance

and more like listening

to someone apologize

for a decision

they have already made

but are too cowardly

to state clearly.

It would be so easy.

One clean sentence.

I don’t want this.

But that level of honesty

requires a spine.

And a shocking number of people

walk around