Posted the wrist, the drink, not the face. Three people guessed wrong. The right one liked it anyway. Delulu works.
I took the photo on a Thursday, which already tells you it was not a proper date. Proper dates happen on Fridays in this city, or they do not happen at all. Thursday is for the ones you have not decided about yet. Thursday is for “shall we just get a drink” and then four hours later you are still there because leaving would require a decision and neither of you is in the business of those.
The wrist was his. Thick watch, the sort that looks expensive until you clock it is not. Veins. A bit of hair. Very “I have a job that requires me to look like I have a job.” The drink was mine. Dirty martini, extra dirty, because I like to announce myself before I have even opened my mouth. His pint sat just out of frame. I cropped it on purpose. A pint would have given the whole thing away. A pint says man. A pint says London. A pint says I am not trying that hard. I was trying that hard. I just wanted it to look like I was not.
No face. Obviously no face. Faces are a hard launch and a hard launch is a funeral for mystery. Once they have the face they have the name, and once they have the name they have the search, and once they have the search they have the opinions. I am not in the opinions business when I have only slept with someone four times. Five if you count the cloakroom, which I do, because I am honest.
I posted it to the grid, not the story. That is the bit people miss. Stories are cowardice dressed as taste. Stories vanish. The grid is a claim. Quiet, but still a claim. Caption was just a full stop. I nearly wrote “good company” and then I wanted to throw my phone in the Thames. Good company is what you write when you have nothing and you know it.
The guesses started before I had even locked my phone
Sophie saw it first because Sophie sees everything first. She was on the sofa in that grey jumper she pretends is vintage. She did not look up. She just said, “is that the one from the thing or the other one.”
I said, “define thing.”
She said, “the one who talks.”
Which was not helpful, because they all talk. That is the problem with men in this city. They think conversation is a personality.
Mia came in from the kitchen with a spoon in her mouth and said it was definitely Tom. It was not Tom. Tom has pianist hands and this wrist did not belong to a pianist. Tom also would have made me put his face in. Tom is that sort of boy. The sort who asks if you posted it yet while you are still putting your knickers back on.
I told them both to shut up. Then I refreshed.
Three wrong guesses in the first twenty minutes. One from a girl I vaguely know from a wedding in Richmond who was convinced it was her cousin. It was not her cousin. I would not soft launch a cousin. I have standards, they are just not the ones people assume. Another from a boy I kissed in 2023 who still thinks every vague photo on my page is a breadcrumb meant for him. Bless. The third was my aunt, who thought it was “that nice lawyer from Christmas.” There was no nice lawyer from Christmas. There was a man who spent forty minutes explaining stamp duty and then tried to put his hand on my knee under the table. I moved the knee. I did not post the knee.
The right one liked it at 11:41pm.
No comment. Just the like. Which is either very cool or very mid, and I still have not decided which. He liked it from his main, not the burner, which I know because I checked. Of course I checked. Anyone who says they do not check is lying or newly in love, and newly in love people are the most annoying people on earth. They glow. They use the word “we” too early. They think a like is a speech.
A like is not a speech. A like is a nod across a room. I will take the nod. I have built entire evenings out of less.
What I was actually doing
Look. I can dress this up as strategy. I am good at strategy. I have a journalism degree and a maths brain I only take out when I need to feel superior to people who cannot split a bill. Soft launching is strategy. You test the market. You see who notices. You see who pretends not to notice. You see whether the person in the photo wants to be in the photo at all.
That last bit is the one nobody admits. The soft launch is not for the followers. Not really. It is a little paper aeroplane you throw at the other person to see if they catch it or let it hit the floor. If they catch it, you have information. If they let it hit the floor, you also have information, and you can delete the post in the morning and call it a lighting experiment.
He caught it.
Then he texted “nice crop” which is the most irritatingly attractive thing anyone has said to me in months, because it means he understood the game and he still wanted to play. I sent back a photo of my empty glass. He sent back a photo of his ceiling. I did not go over. It was a school night for him, apparently. I do not have school nights. I have content nights and recovery mornings. There is a difference.
Sophie said I was being delulu. She says that a lot. She thinks delulu is an insult. I think delulu is a work ethic. You invent the version of the night you want and then you live in it long enough that it becomes true, or at least true enough to write about. That is the job. That is the whole job.
The rules I made up and then immediately broke
Rule one: no names. Names make it real and real things can disappoint you.
Rule two: no second post in the same week. Two posts is a campaign. I am not running a campaign for a man who still uses the laughing emoji as punctuation.
Rule three: if anyone in the comments writes “OMG who is that” I do not reply. I like the comment and I move on. Silence is hotter than a FAQ.
I broke rule two on Saturday. Not with his face. With a second wrist. Different watch. Same man. I know. I know. Do not look at me like that. I was hungover and the lighting in the kitchen was doing that late morning thing where everything looks like a film still and I am weak for film stills. Mia said I was “so obvious it was embarrassing.” I said embarrassment is just another type of engagement.
She is not wrong. Neither am I.
The DMs were feral in a polite way, which is the London way. “Looks fun.” “Love this for you.” “Is this the finance one or the one who DJs.” There is no finance one. There is a man who once mentioned ISAs and I nearly left the table. There is no DJ. There is a man who put on a playlist and called it a vibe. I have slept with both types. I am not precious.
A girl from uni asked if I was “finally settling.” I sent her a voice note that was just me laughing. Settling is a word people use when they want you smaller. I am not getting smaller. I am getting photographed.
What he thought it meant
He thought it meant we were something.
I know because on Sunday he said “so are we doing this then” while I was looking for my other earring behind his sofa. Doing this. As if “this” is a form you sign. As if a cropped wrist is a contract.
I said, “we are doing whatever this is until it stops being interesting.”
He laughed, which was the correct response. The incorrect response is getting quiet and then asking where you see yourself in five years. I do not see myself in five years. I see myself on Friday. Sometimes I see myself next month if the weather is good and I have something to wear.
He asked if I was going to hard launch him. I told him not to be disgusting. A hard launch is for people who have met the parents and bought a plant together. We have not bought a plant. We have bought drinks and time and a very specific type of silence in Ubers. That is not nothing. It is also not a joint account.
I did let him take a photo of me that night. Full face. My lighting. My angle. I look like I know a secret. I do. The secret is that I will post his wrist again before I post his name. The secret is that I like him enough to want the attention and not quite enough to risk the comments turning into a group project.
He asked if he could post me. I said yes, but crop it. He said that was rich coming from me. I said richness is the point.
Why I needed it more than I needed him
I should be honest here, because honesty is the thing I am supposedly bad at hiding.
I posted the wrist because I wanted people to know I was wanted. Not in a tragic way. In a practical way. There is a particular quiet that happens when you have not been seen with anyone for a while. It is not loneliness exactly. It is irrelevance. It sits in the group chat. It sits in the way your own mother says “any news” and means a person, not a promotion. I do not need a person. I need proof of life. A wrist is proof of life. A drink is proof I left the house. A like from the right account is proof the experiment worked.
Does that make me using him?
A bit. Yes. A bit.
He is using me too. He liked the crop because it made him look like a rumour. Men love being a rumour. They pretend they want to be chosen in public. What they actually want is to be guessed. Guessing is desire with plausible deniability. If it all goes wrong he can say it was just a photo of a table. If it goes right he can say he knew. Everybody wins until somebody does not.
I am not pretending this is love. Love is a word I save for my flatmates when they bring me toast and do not ask questions. This is something else. This is a soft launch. This is a little door left open so the room looks occupied.
The morning after the like
I woke up and the post had done numbers. Not viral numbers. My numbers. The numbers that make you feel like you still exist in the city. Sophie put coffee down next to my head and said, “you look smug.”
I said, “I am smug.”
She said, “it is a wrist, Chels.”
I said, “it is a very good wrist.”
Mia wanted to know if I was seeing him again. I was. Tuesday. Or Wednesday. One of the days that are not quite a weekend and therefore cannot be accused of meaning too much. I will wear the lip gloss I reapply in every window. I will let him pay if he offers and I will pay if he does not, because I like the version of myself that can do both. I will not take a photo of his face. I might take a photo of the second drink. I might not post it. I probably will.
Three people guessed wrong. The right one liked it. I have already started composing the next crop in my head. Shoulder, maybe. Or the back of a head in a taxi, city lights smeared, my earring in the foreground so it is still my picture. Always my picture.
Delulu works. Of course it works. The alternative is waiting until you are sure, and I have never been sure of anything except my own reflection and the fact that a good story needs an edit. Faces are for later. Wrists are for now. Now is all I ever promised anyone, including him, including me.
If you think you know who it is, you do not. If you think this means I have settled, you have not been paying attention. And if you are him, reading this on your lunch break like I know you will, congratulations. You got the like. You did not get the face. That is the deal. That is the launch. That is as official as I am willing to be on a Thursday.