Micro-Memoir: “The Love Affair”

I met him at the coffee shop where dreams, deadlines, and digestive regrets collide.

He ordered a soy latte with two pumps of hazelnut. Though it has been over 5 years, I still remember him like it was yesterday. He had the haunted eyes of someone who'd been emotionally waterboarded by his last relationship.

I was nursing my own heartbreak; a recent ghosting by a man who said he wanted “emotional transparency” but blocked me after I asked if he believed in dinosaurs. (I’m not saying the two are related, but the timeline was suspicious.)

Anyway, he asked if the seat next to me was taken. It wasn’t. Not literally. So, I invited him to join me.

For a few weeks, we played romantic improv. Sunday markets, Tuesday trivia, shared playlists and late-night texts like:
“Do you think soulmates have preferred parking?” And,
“Would you still like me if I had a second head?”

We were two overthinkers in a beautiful codependent spiral. He made me playlists titled things like Mildly Obsessive But Charming. I wrote him a poem that rhymed "existential dread" with "bread."

Then one day, we argued. About bagels. I said everything bagels were the most honest of all breads. They show up with flavor. He said they were needy, attention-seeking, and made his car smell like a deli. The conversation escalated into the absurd, as the best ones do. It was the first time I wanted to punch someone and kiss them at the same time.

That’s when I realized I really liked him.

The love affair did not last, of course. He moved to Portland to open a tiny record shop that only sells vinyls from bands with less than 1,000 monthly Spotify listeners. I clapped because the dream was so specific and beautiful, like a toddler dressed as a sea captain.

But sometimes, when I’m waiting for my coffee and the barista calls out, “hazelnut latte,” I remember him. I don’t ache. I don’t cringe. I just smile like someone recalling a dream where you almost kissed a cartoon character, and it wasn’t weird, it was lovely.

Love, I’ve learned, doesn’t always arrive in whole stories. Sometimes it’s just a fragment in time. It comes in the form of a favorite song, a ridiculous argument, or the brief but heroic belief that someone else might just understand your weird little soul.

And that’s enough.