My alarm went off at five again, and this time I did not wake up feeling like a sack of wet dog food somebody had rolled into a dress shirt. That was the first thing. Not a thought exactly. More like an absence. I opened my eyes and nothing hurt in that blunt, immediate way it had hurt the week before. My chest did not feel crowded. My lower back was not already complaining. I rolled over, threw one leg out of bed, sat up, and the whole movement happened in one clean piece, which was enough to make me stop right there on the edge of the mattress and do it again in my head just to make sure I had not imagined it. I stood up and felt light. Not light like I could float, obviously. Just normal, I guess, except normal had not felt this good in a long time, maybe ever, because I had spent the entire last week carrying a body around that made every hallway and every parking lot feel like an accusation. This felt like getting out of a costume that had been stapled to me. My stomach was flat. My shoulders sat where they were supposed to sit. My shirt from the night before hung off the chair in a way that immediately told me it was not going to fit the same, and for a minute I just stood there in the dark bedroom smiling like an idiot because I already knew. I had not even looked in the mirror yet and I knew. Then I did look in the mirror, and honestly, that was almost embarrassing. I do not mean because I looked bad. I mean because I could feel my entire mood turn itself around in about three seconds. Jaw back. Neck back. Waist back. Arms with actual shape to them. Shoulders that filled the space they were supposed to fill. Not cartoonishly huge, not bodybuilder weird, none of that. Just obviously fit. Obviously worked on. The kind of body where people would assume you had your life together whether or not that was true. I turned sideways. Turned back. Lifted an arm and looked at it like it belonged to somebody I knew from the internet. I remember laughing once under my breath and saying, "Okay," like I had just been proven right about something important. It was not gratitude first. It was something uglier and more satisfying than that. More like yes, exactly. This. Of course this mattered. Of course everything felt easier now. The apartment helped. Same place as last week, same high-rise, same glass, same whole expensive adult setup, but now I matched it. That was the difference. Last week the apartment had felt like a nice container for a guy who had gone wrong. This morning it felt coherent. I walked past the windows shirtless on purpose, which is not something I had ever done in my life because there had never been a reason to. The kitchen counters were clear except for a shaker bottle, a bowl of fruit, one of those big insulated water bottles, and a loaf of bread on a cutting board under a towel, which I guess I must have bought or maybe somebody brought over, I do not know. The whole place looked like the kind of apartment men in advertisements live in before they tell you about watches. Then I started seeing the evidence of how I had apparently gotten here. Meal prep containers stacked in the fridge. Greek yogurt. Chicken. Rice. Ground turkey. Vegetables portioned out in clear containers like this version of me was running a meal service for one. Protein powder. Two different gym bags for some reason, one by the door and one in the coat closet. Alarms in my phone named things like `Leg day`, `Meals`, `Sleep`. Calendar blocks at lunch that just said `Lift`. A note in the fridge on a little magnetic pad that had a grocery list and then under it, in my own handwriting apparently, `No drinks during the week.` I stood there reading all of it and, for a second, had a decent reaction. Good for him. Good for me, I guess, or the other me, or whatever I was supposed to call the guy who had apparently spent years doing all the boring things I never wanted to do. There was something respectable about it. It felt a little like finding out a relative you always thought was kind of stiff had quietly built a life that actually worked. He got up early, lifted weights, ate properly, probably said no a hundred times where I would have said yes once, and now I was standing in the middle of what all that had bought him. The gym bag was by the door, and I had every intention of going. Just not right now. I made coffee, looked around the apartment a little more, checked my phone, opened the fridge, shut it again, and by then the whole thing had already slid into later. There was apparently a whole breakfast setup too, but I never really got as far as choosing between that and some bread. The bread was already out. It smelled good. It was easy. I toasted two thick slices, put some butter on them, and ate standing at the counter looking at my reflection in the dark window over the sink. Then I added jam because I wanted it sweeter. Nothing about any of it felt serious. I still looked the same ten minutes later, and that made it very easy to think I'd get back to all of it. At work, people noticed. Women smiled sooner. Men talked to me a touch more respectfully. Even Bradley, who had bigger things to care about, looked at me once in the hallway and said, "All right. Looking sharp," and I knew exactly what he meant. I liked that more than I should have. The office felt better because I matched it now, but mostly it just made me less patient to get out of there. I kept checking the time, checked myself out in the bathroom mirror, downloaded a dating app again, and by that night I was out for drinks with a woman I probably would have ignored a month earlier. The old excuse was gone. I had what I used to think men needed. She was good-looking. Fun enough. Two drinks became three, then she came back with me. She said, "Wow," when she saw the view, and I acted like that happened all the time. We slept together, and it was good in the most obvious possible way: an attractive woman wanted me in the apartment that matched the rest of the life I thought I was supposed to have. Afterward she was half asleep and I was staring at the ceiling thinking, okay, now what. And that was kind of it. Not that it was bad. It was just already over in my head. I had wanted it for so long, and once I had it, it felt smaller than it was supposed to. She left in the morning, and by the time the coffee was done I had already turned it into proof. Not proof that anything deeper had changed. Just proof that I could do this now. I had access. Which meant, obviously, that the only thing left was somebody better. Somebody I actually wanted. Friday afternoon Victoria came by my office and leaned on the doorframe like she owned part of the building. "We're doing happy hour," she said. "We always do happy hour." "Yes, and this time you're coming." "Was I not?" She looked at me for a second. "Honestly? You were kind of fifty-fifty before. Lately you show up to things, but I still don't trust your spirit." "My spirit is excellent." "Good. Then your spirit can come to my house first. A few people are coming by before we head downtown." I almost said no out of habit. But if I was being honest, I liked the sound of going somewhere social straight from work now. It made me feel like one of those guys whose life continued after five instead of shutting like a garage door. "Yeah," I said. "I'll come." "Good. And don't be weird." "That's not actionable feedback." "You know what I mean." I did, unfortunately. Victoria's house was in North Park on a street where all the houses looked like they had been fixed up just enough to make you think about money without openly bragging about it. Hers had a little front porch with chairs that looked used instead of decorative and plants that were alive because she actually watered them. When I walked in, the first thing I smelled was bread. Real bread too, not the fake cinnamon candle version of bread. Something warm and yeasty and actually finished. There were people in the kitchen and living room already, nobody arranged, nobody performing. Music low enough that you did not have to lean into every sentence. A cutting board out with butter on it. Wine open. Somebody laughing from the couch. It all had this easy house-not-showroom feeling that made my apartment seem a little sterile in comparison. Victoria came out of the kitchen with a dish towel over one shoulder and said, "There he is." "You made bread?" "Yeah, obviously." She handed me a drink and disappeared again. Ten seconds later she was in the living room fixing something for somebody on the couch, then back in the kitchen, then laughing at something by the sink. People kept showing up. That made sense. And then I saw her, and I was suddenly sure she was the thing I had been missing. She was near the end of the kitchen counter talking to Victoria and tearing a piece of bread in half with both hands. Simple black dress, hair pulled back, not dressed for a rooftop bar the way the other women there were dressed for a rooftop bar. If anything she looked like she had agreed to come out under protest and was trying to meet the occasion halfway. Victoria said something to her and she laughed, took the butter knife out of her hand without making a thing of it, and started slicing the bread like she had already been there a while. That was when I actually looked at her. There was something effortless about her, like whatever usually gets added to make somebody stand out just had not been necessary. Nothing distracting. Nothing trying too hard. She smiled at something Victoria said and I had the immediate annoying feeling that the rest of the room had gone a little softer around the edges. Victoria saw me looking and said, "Derek, this is my friend Maya." Maya turned already smiling. Not polite. Actually smiling, because whatever Victoria had just said still had some life in it. "Hey," she said. "Hey." She was still in a good mood. Laughing, warm, relaxed, eating bread in Victoria's kitchen. I remember seeing that and thinking, okay, this should be simple. She was already happy. All I had to do was step into it and give her a reason to point that smile at me. "You work with Victoria?" she asked. "Yeah," I said. "Same office." "Doing what?" "Sales." "For what?" "Food-processing equipment," I said. "Big systems for plants and manufacturers. It's less boring than it sounds." "I'll take your word for it." "It's been good, though," I said. "I've moved up pretty fast." "Nice." "Long days, but good money." She nodded and took a bite of bread. Still smiling, but smaller now. "How do you know Victoria?" I asked. "We used to live near each other." "So she dragged you out." "Basically." Victoria slid back into the kitchen, pulled a tray out of the oven, and said, "She was this close to staying home." "I was not this close." "You hate bars." "I don't hate bars." "You hate bar people." Maya laughed at that. A real laugh. I heard it and immediately wanted more of it. "I'm with you there," I said. "Half of this is just networking with worse lighting." "That's bleak." "It's true, though," I said. "I do a lot of it for work. Client dinners, happy hours, all that. You get used to it once you're dealing with bigger accounts." "That sounds exhausting." "Sometimes," I said. "But there are worse problems." She tipped one shoulder a little. "I live downtown too, so half the time it's simpler to stay out than drive home and come back," I said. "My building's right there. Good view. Good spot. Makes it easy to have people over." "That is convenient." "Yeah," I said. "It makes the whole thing feel a little more worth it." She nodded again, but by then she was no longer facing me all the way. One hip against the counter, one hand around her drink, eyes starting to go back toward Victoria and the rest of the room. "You don't seem like this is really your scene," I said. "Usually not." "Probably healthier," I said. "I still end up out a lot. Work, mostly. And honestly, it is easier meeting people when you live downtown and don't have to think too hard about what a night costs." Victoria set another warm slice of bread on the plate between us. "Eat something before you all go pretend to have fun." Maya smiled at her, not at me. "That's the plan." "My place is good for afters too," I said. "So usually one thing kind of turns into another." "I'm sure," Maya said. She said it pleasantly, but she had already left the conversation with most of her body. Somebody in the living room called her name and she turned right away. "Good to meet you," she said. "Yeah. You too." For the rest of the time at Victoria's house I kept noticing Maya without being near her. The way she listened all the way through when somebody was talking instead of waiting for her turn. The way she carried plates into the living room, came back for the last one without making a thing of it, and wiped a spot off the counter when Victoria had her hands full. The way she laughed and then let the laugh end. At one point Victoria pointed at a painting on the wall near the hallway and said to somebody, "Maya did that one, by the way," and Maya immediately looked embarrassed in a way that made me want to keep looking at it. It was actually good too. Not hobby-good. Just good. Later somebody mentioned Maya had to leave early Sunday because she had a shift at a soup kitchen, and she just nodded and said, "Yeah, morning one," like it was the most ordinary sentence in the world. When we all headed out to the rooftop bar after that, I was still thinking about her. Not in a sweet way either. More like everything else had gone a little blurry and she had not. If anything, it just made me want her more. The rooftop bar should have been a victory lap. I had the body, the apartment, the office, and enough recent proof to think I belonged there now. Maya was somewhere in the mix, which made the whole thing feel like an exam I was finally prepared for. High up. Open air. String lights. Good view. Expensive enough that you could feel people relaxing into the fact that they had been admitted. There were women dressed for pictures and men dressed like they hoped money itself had a fabric. The drinks were eighteen, twenty dollars, whatever, one of those places where nothing on the menu was shocking enough to start a conversation but everything was slightly insulting if you stopped to think about it. Which I did not. I was too busy being pleased with how easily I fit into it. At first I was good. I could feel it right away. My posture changed when we got out of the elevator. My voice changed a little too, lower and more casual, like I had been here before and would be here again. It is hard to describe how much easier it is to move through a room when you are not preoccupied with whether people are looking at you and immediately docking points. I had spent so long on the wrong side of that that the absence of it felt stupidly easy. Which of course meant I started spending it immediately. People responded well enough. I had no trouble getting drinks. No trouble joining conversations. There were little moments all over the place that old me would have built a whole future out of. A woman at the bar touched my forearm while she was talking. Some guy I did not know asked where I got my watch. One of the women from accounting introduced me to her friend with a tone that suggested I was one of the acceptable men available for the evening. That sort of thing. Not huge, but cumulative. Enough to keep the machine running. I bought a round I did not need to buy because it felt good to do it without thinking. The problem was that Maya did not seem impressed by any of it. She talked to me when I was near her. She smiled. She laughed once at something I said that was actually funny, or maybe just timed correctly. She was not cold. She just was not reacting to me the way I had already started expecting women to react to me, and once I noticed that, I could not stop noticing it. Because then I started seeing the men too. Taller guys. Better-looking guys. Guys with that loose confidence that says either I have done this a thousand times or I do not actually care if it works. I had already attached all of that to Maya, so once I saw them, that was kind of it. I kept watching her drift through the room with the same ease she had at Victoria's house. She was not even trying to dominate anything. That was what got me. Everybody else suddenly looked a little too on, and she didn't. So my brain went where it always goes. I need more. More polish. More wit. Better stories. More reps. More nights like this. Later Victoria had her phone out showing somebody pictures of her house. She swiped past one, then stopped on a painting leaning against a wall and said, "Maya did this one too, by the way. And the one over my couch." I looked over. "Wait, those are yours?" Maya nodded once. "Yeah." "Those are really good." "Thanks." "No, like actually good," I said. "Not friend-good." Victoria laughed a little. Maya didn't. "Do you sell them or anything?" I asked. "No." "You could." She shrugged. "Maybe. I don't really care about that part." "How long have you been painting?" "A while." "That's impressive." "It's just something I like doing." Every time I tried to make her more impressive, she handed me the smaller, realer version instead. By the time the night started breaking apart, I was irritated in that very specific useless way where you can tell you have not had a bad night exactly, but you also have not gotten the one thing you decided would make the night count. Maya left with Victoria first, or maybe at the same time, I cannot remember. I remember watching them leave, though, and hating how quickly the room flattened out after that. I didn't go home alone that night. One of the women I had met earlier stayed out later with me after most people filtered off. We went to one more place, then she came back with me. Again, in the moment, everything worked. She wanted me. I wanted her enough. The apartment landed. The body landed. If you had taken a picture of any ten-minute span of that night and shown it to an earlier version of me, he would have thought, there, that's it, that's the life. Then morning came and I had the same feeling again, only clearer now because it was the second time. She was in my kitchen wearing one of my shirts, looking for coffee filters, and all I could think was that this still was not the thing. It was good. Fine. Better than being alone and resentful and stuck in the old body, obviously. But by morning it already felt small. Like something that filled a few hours and then went flat. What I got from that was not the right lesson. If the having-them part burned off that fast, maybe the part I actually liked was the part before it. The turn. Getting there. Winning them over. Over the next couple weeks I started reducing most women to the same few moves in my head. Tell them they're pretty. Pick the place. Pay for dinner. Act like you've done this before. Once I thought I had the pattern, I chased it even more. One afternoon the week after that, Bradley leaned into my office and asked if I had sent the Aries follow-up yet. I said I was about to. He said he had already called them because they were getting jumpy and told me to send the notes over when I had a second. I said good, thanks, and clicked back to what I was doing. Then I opened the thread, saw the half-finished draft still sitting there, flagged it, answered two easier emails, and let the whole thing slide again. It did not feel like a big thing. Mostly it felt like one more thing between me and five o'clock. What did surprise me a little was that easing off had not changed much where I could actually see it. The paycheck still looked basically the same. People still talked to me like I was important enough to bother. And even with whatever boundaries the old version of me had apparently set up, work kept trying anyway. Early calls. Late asks. One more thing before I left. That part did irritate me. If they were going to keep asking for more either way, I had a hard time seeing why I should be the one volunteering it. The rest of the second week blurred a little. I still liked the body. I liked how easy everything felt in it. Stairs were nothing. Getting dressed was nothing. Walking into a room was different now, and I liked that too. People looked at me differently and I noticed every time. But after a few days even that started feeling less new. My gym bag stayed by the door. I kept thinking I'd get back to it. One morning I put on a fitted shirt that had looked especially good on me the first week and it sat a little less cleanly through the waist. Not bad. Just less automatic. I blamed the dryer and kept moving. Mostly I was a little bored and a little restless, which felt familiar enough that I did not think much of it. One night my dad called while I was driving to meet somebody for dinner. I watched the phone ring on the console, let it go, and figured I'd call him back after. By the time I got home I was tired, then I was in the shower, then I was looking at something else. So that became the loop. Work, traffic, office, takeout, drinks, swiping, telling myself I would tighten things back up Monday. There were rides because parking was annoying, dinners because going somewhere decent felt like part of the deal now, rounds because hesitating over the bill suddenly felt embarrassing. During the day I mostly wanted work to stop interrupting the rest of my life. I wanted to answer enough emails, sit through enough calls, move enough things forward that nobody could really say anything, then get out and go be myself somewhere else. If I was getting basically the same money either way, it got easier and easier to think the real part of my life was waiting for me somewhere after work. And underneath all of it, Maya kept getting boiled down in my head. It was not even specific anymore. What stayed with me was less how she looked than the fact that she seemed actually kind. Not fake nice. Not polished. Just good with people. I kept thinking about her laugh, which was becoming a problem. I wanted to be the one getting it out of her. So far all I had really seen was her smiling at other people, listening to other people, enjoying other people, and somehow that kept making the rest of what I was doing feel thinner. By the second week, it had started feeling simple. I needed more practice. More time around people. More ease. More social miles. Be smoother. Be more interesting. Tell better stories. Relax. Become the kind of guy women like Maya say yes to without having to talk themselves into it. By then I was already thinking about what I'd write in the journal, just not quite desperate enough to do it yet. Victoria texted me on Thursday afternoon of the third week since my last journal entry. `Game night tomorrow. You're coming.` Then, before I answered: `And take a shower first.` I stared at it for a second and laughed despite myself. Most people could not have talked to me like that. Victoria usually could. I texted back, `I always shower.` She sent, `That wasn't the part I was worried about.` I almost asked if Maya was going to be there. I did not, mostly because that would have told on me immediately. By then I had spent most of the week telling myself that if I just got enough chances with her, eventually she would come around the same way other women had. So instead I just said I would be there. And then I spent the rest of the afternoon doing the bare minimum amount of work necessary to keep the day moving while mostly thinking about game night like it was an interview round. Clothes, timing, tone, where to sit, how to not come off too eager. The worst part was that I also felt optimistic. This was the second shot. A quieter room. More time. No bar noise. Just people in a house. I told myself that if I could not do better there, then okay, maybe I had something to think about. But of course I was going to do better there. Victoria's house smelled like garlic and bread again when I got there, which by then was becoming part of the place's identity. Somebody had music on in the kitchen. There were bowls of things on the counter, chips and cut vegetables and some dip that looked homemade enough to make store-bought dip feel a little embarrassed for existing. A board game was already out on the dining table, another stacked on the sideboard with cards half sliding out of the box. It was one of those rooms where everybody seems a little more like themselves than they do out in public. I do not know if that was Victoria's doing exactly or just what happens in houses where people actually live and welcome other people into them, but either way it made the whole evening harder for me because there was less spectacle to hide behind. At the rooftop bar, everybody was somewhat abstract. At Victoria's house, details mattered. Maya was already there. She was in the kitchen with Victoria, cutting limes on a board and talking to her like she'd already been there a while. She looked up when I came in, smiled, and said, "Hey, Derek." "Hey." Victoria pointed at the six-pack in my hand. "You can put that in the fridge." I stood there for another second. "And then stop standing there," she said. Maya laughed and went back to the limes. The first part of the night was fine, which was probably the problem. There were enough people around that I did not have to force anything. I could move. Sit for one game, get up for another drink, wander into the kitchen, wander back out. Maya was around without being cornered next to me, and that helped. I said a couple things she laughed at. Real laughs too, not charity ones. That was enough to make me think I had the timing right. Later I ended up next to her by the sink while Victoria was pulling something out of the oven. Maya said one of her brothers had six kids and somehow still seemed calm all the time. "Six is insane," I said. She laughed. "I know." "How many siblings do you have?" "Five." "Jesus Christ." "It was loud," she said. "Good, though." "You liked it." "Yeah," she said. "Enough that I apparently want to do it again." "Do it again?" "Have a big family." She said it like she was saying she needed to leave by nine. "Really." "Yeah." "Like a lot of kids?" "Hopefully." I nodded like that was a thing I had thought about before. "That's good," I said. "Big families usually mean something." "Like what?" "I don't know. Stability, maybe. People who know how to build something." She looked at me for a second, then took her drink back off the counter. "Maybe," she said. We all ended up at the table after that. Teams got made. Victoria took over the room without looking like she was taking over the room, which I think is one of the reasons she is good to have around. She had snacks circulating, drinks refilled, rules explained, seating rearranged, all while still feeling like part of the night instead of the woman managing it. Maya was across from me for the first game and to my right for the second. Good enough positioning that I kept feeling like chances were presenting themselves naturally, which made it easier to keep believing I was one good exchange away from turning the whole thing. At one point during a break between games, a couple people drifted outside and I ended up in the kitchen with Maya alone for maybe forty-five seconds while everybody else was still grabbing drinks. Which should have been perfect. Just enough time to be normal without pressure. She was rinsing glasses in the sink and I said, "So does Victoria always have to negotiate you into coming to things?" She smiled a little. "Not always." "She makes it sound like getting you out of the house is a full operation." "She's dramatic." "You kind of have that vibe, though." "What vibe?" "Like people have to coax you out." That changed her expression a little. Not much. "I don't know that that's a compliment," she said. "It wasn't meant as one." She dried her hands on a dish towel and picked her drink back up. "I come here more than I go out-out," she said. "This is better." "Because bars are terrible?" "Sometimes." "Or because dating is terrible right now." She looked at me then. Not angry. Just flatter than before. "I'm really not dating right now," she said. "Yeah, Victoria mentioned that." "Okay." She said it like that should have been enough. "I just mean," I said, "sometimes that changes when somebody surprises you." She held my eye for a second. "No," she said. "Sometimes people just mean it." That annoyed me more than it probably should have. Not because she was rude. Because she was acting like we were already having a conversation I had lost. "Fair," I said. She nodded once, then looked past me toward the living room, and that was more or less the end of it. We went back to the table. Everybody else was laughing about something that had happened while we were in the kitchen. Victoria caught my face for half a second and I could not tell whether she knew exactly what had happened or just knew enough. Maya sat down two seats away from me instead of one. Again, not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just a small movement that said more than a speech would have. That felt a little dramatic to me at first. She was still normal after that. Still talking, still laughing with everybody else, still not acting like anything had happened. Which somehow made it worse. There was nothing concrete to react to, just a slight change I could feel and could not undo. Later, while people were putting game pieces back in the box, I got next to her again and said, "You really don't give people much to work with." She looked at me. "In what sense?" "I don't know," I said. "You're hard to read." "Maybe I don't need to be easy to read." "I didn't say easy." "Okay," she said. Again with that okay. Not angry. Just finished. By the time people started leaving, everybody was pleasant and tired and stacking bowls and asking who parked where. I was helping Victoria carry glasses into the kitchen when Maya came in to grab her bag off the chair near the wall. Victoria was turned toward the dishwasher with her back to us. Maya looked at me. I tried one last time to make it light. "So what, I get one more shot in six months, or what?" She stopped and looked at me in a way that made me wish immediately that I had not said it. "Derek," she said, "no." "I'm joking." "No, you're not." Victoria turned around at that. I said, "I wasn't even doing that." Maya's face changed a little then. "You are," she said. "You've been pushing it all night. I'm not interested. Stop." That was worse than if she had just brushed me off privately. Not louder, exactly. Just clear enough that Victoria heard it and I had to stand there in the kitchen holding two glasses like an idiot while Maya grabbed her bag, hugged Victoria, thanked her for hosting, and left. I helped Victoria clean up for maybe another ten minutes after that. I do not remember most of what she said. Something about leftovers. Something about Bradley being too competitive during charades. At one point she handed me foil and I tore off way too much and she said, "Jesus Christ, who raised you," and I actually laughed, which probably made me look more normal than I was. I kept waiting for her to bring Maya up. She did not. Which I appreciated and resented at the same time. When I finally left, the night air outside felt colder than it should have. I sat in the SUV for a minute with the engine on and my hands on the wheel, not ready to drive yet. It would have been easier if I could have gotten annoyed with her. I tried that for about ten seconds and it did not take. The drive home felt longer than usual. My apartment looked good when I walked in. The view still worked. The counters were still clean. The couch still looked expensive. My body still looked good when I passed the hallway mirror. None of it made a dent in the fact that I had been told no by the only woman who had managed to turn the rest of my life into background. I poured a drink I did not need, stood at the kitchen counter, then dumped it out. Then I stood there with both hands on the counter trying to decide what had actually gone wrong. At first all I really felt was annoyed. Then confused. Then, a little later, the whole night started replaying in the wrong light. A couple lines. Her face changing. The way she had kept stepping back without literally stepping back. But she had not been cold with me before that. She had laughed a couple times. Not polite laughs either. The kind where she leaned into it for a second. Answered me like I was still in the conversation. Which, to me, meant I had not been completely out of it. I had just done something to take myself out. I was too stiff. Too eager. Too obvious. Not enough time around women like that. Not enough practice in rooms where conversation mattered more than looks. That was the explanation that came together fastest, so I went with it. I thought: I am under-repped. Which, I have to admit, really did feel insightful at the time. I got the journal out of my work bag and sat at the kitchen counter with it open in front of me. Once I sat down to write, the whole thing became simpler than it had felt in the car. If I wanted a different present, I needed a different recent past. Not a miracle. Just more time around people. More nights out. More reps talking to women I actually cared about instead of expecting to suddenly be good at it the one time it mattered. That was good enough for me. So I wrote: Go out more. When someone invites you somewhere, go. Stay longer and try to enjoy yourself. Talk to more people so it stops feeling like such a performance every time. Ask questions. Do not keep turning the conversation back to yourself. Be easier to be around. With Maya, do not push so fast. Be around. Make her laugh. Let her get used to you. Follow up. Do not keep drifting off toward easier women just because they are easier. Give yourself enough reps that women like that stop feeling out of reach. I sat there after finishing it with my hand still on the pen, reading it back and feeling, stupidly, relieved. It sounded practical. Like there was a fix. Like I had not just embarrassed myself, but identified the gap and done something about it. I closed the journal and stood there for a second in the expensive silence of the apartment, looking out at the city lights and thinking that next week everything might finally line up. My phone buzzed on the counter while I was standing there. I glanced at it and saw a balance alert from one of the cards, swiped it away without opening it, and put the phone facedown. Then I took the journal with me to bed.