I remember thinking, after the rent cleared and before the next round of bills hit, that I deserved a nice meal. A real one, with linen napkins and cutlery that wasn’t…bent. And then this date thing came up, and I thought, why not? Maybe it’s time to try again, you know? Put myself out there. Like that’s a thing you just *do*. So I’m sitting there, trying to look chill, listening to them talk about their gap year in Patagonia, or wherever, and I’m just like, oh. Right. That kind of life. And my phone is buzzing under the table, a little digital puppet master, feeding me lines. The words it gave me… they were good. Smooth. Witty, even. The kind of thing I used to say naturally, maybe, when I was twenty and thought the world was just a giant pick-and-mix. Now it’s more like… a calculation. Every laugh felt a little forced, every charming anecdote it spun for me, a little hollow. My thumb flying across the screen, searching for the perfect response, while they’re talking about their startup, or their yoga retreat, or some shit. My stomach was doing this low rumble, a different kind of hunger, I guess. Not for the fancy chicken on the plate, but for something… real. Something that didn't need a cheat sheet. And then they laughed, a genuine, open sound, at something the little rectangle in my lap had suggested, and for a split second, I felt it. A flicker of something, like a gas burner trying to catch. But it just… didn't. Just the cold glow of the screen on my palm, and the weight of another forty hours looming, and the faint, persistent ache in my lower back. I just nodded, and chewed my food, and made a mental note to see if the landlord was accepting partial payments again this month. Some dreams are just too expensive, I guess. Even the ones you didn't know you had.