Maybe.

My last customer was leaving when she walked in the door, all made up, and announced, “Romance is dead!”

The customer stopped in his tracks and I’m sure would’ve stayed to hear the rest of her monologue, which was definitely coming. But I gently ushered him out and put on the ‘Closed’ sign.

“What happened?”

“I signed up on Tinder, just like you said.”

“Ooo-kay,” I wasn’t sure how that meant romance was dead. I gestured at her outfit, “So, I take it you matched with someone?”

“Oh yeah, five different someones over two weeks.”

“Did you go out with any of them?” I started my lock up rituals – tidying up the counter, emptying the till.

“All five of them.”

“What? Together?!”

“No! Stupid.” She hopped onto one of the bar stools at the counter.

“Okay, so five first dates. That’s good. Any seconds?”

“No, no seconds. And no, it’s not good. Every single one was excruciating.”

“They can’t have all been that bad.”

“But they were,” she sounded exasperated. “I’m not a fool, I never expected love at first sight. But it would’ve been nice to be treated like a human at least.”

I placed her coffee in front of her. Low-fat latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon and whipped cream on top.

“They were all great on Tinder,” she continued, “and they seemed nice enough at first glance. But they didn’t see me! They either kept talking about themselves or kept staring at my breasts!”

I felt anger slowly simmering. Men stared at breasts all the time. It was a hobby men around the globe shared. And I liked to believe that most of us had the decency to be discrete. Plus how blind do you have to be to not see her?! She’s bottled sunshine. She glows even on her bad days.

“I told you online dating was a sham,” she went on with her monologue. “It’s all about aesthetics and instant gratification. Swipe left, swipe right, get matched, hookup, goodbye! It’s demeaning!” She paused to sip her coffee.

“I only suggested it because I thought it would do you good. You’ve been pretty lonely.”

“Well, congratulations, I feel even lonelier now. I feel insignificant. Small. Invisible. Like I don’t matter. Like my aspirations, my feelings, my brain – like it’s all of no consequence.”

“Just because you met a douchebag — ”

“FIVE douchebags, not one. Five men, five separate dates, and each one left me feeling diminished.”

“I’m sorry you felt that way.”

“Look, I know I’m idealistic. I’m a self-professed hopeless romantic. I like the idea of meeting someone and holding on to them forever. But forever is too much for this generation of commitment-phobes to process!”

“You can’t give up on love because of a few bad starts.”

“I’m not giving up on love. I’m giving up on the idea of finding it in all this mess. Love doesn’t suddenly spring on you in the moment. It is cultivated, nurtured. I can’t simply fall in love with someone because they’re interested in some of the same things as me. I need to get to know someone and I need them to get to know me, but how can that happen if the other person can’t look far enough beyond himself to even see me?!”

“What if I told you I see you?”

“Of course you see me. We’ve been friends since college. I’ve been a regular at this café since the day you asked me to taste-test your menu. We’ve met each other’s families. If you still didn’t see me, it would put my existential crisis in overdrive!”

“No, listen to me,” I leaned forward on my elbows, “I really see you.”

“Is this the part where you tell me you’ve always been in love with me?” She actually chuckled! That really did wonders for self-esteem.

“Well… Maybe?”

“That sounds pretty non-committal to me.”

“It’s not non-committal. I just don’t know if it’s love in the sense you take it.”

“And what sense is that?”

“You said it yourself, you’re idealistic.”

“Wow, you see me and you hear me enough to use my words against me.”

“I’m trying to tell you I might be in love with you, and you’re fighting me on it?”

“I’m not fighting!” I didn’t want to point out that she was shouting, but I guess she read it on my face. “Look, you can’t spring something like this on me and then say maybe. There’s a lot of grey in the world, but this has to be black or white.”

“I understand.”

All the comfortable silences I’ve known have been around her. Maybe that was the love she idealized – peaceful quietudes. She gazed into her coffee mug, now empty, the foam sunk to the bottom with nothing to float on. Deflated, just like her in this moment. I made me uncomfortable when she looked like this, when the glow around her turned from bright gold to a dull violet. “Maybe I love you,” the word vomit was starting and my brain had taken leave, “and I say maybe because I don’t want to scare you. You call everyone a commitment-phobe but did you ever stop to think that maybe you’re just as scared?”

Her shoulders slumped an infinitesimal amount – but I noticed it, just like I noticed everything else about her. Maybe this was the love she talked about, being tuned in to someone so deeply.

“You’re scared of investing yourself in someone, of sharing your secrets and your burdens because you like the weight of them on your chest and on your shoulders. You’re scared of the possibility that you’d make a home of someone because you’ve known that flavour of homelessness and it’s still souring your tongue.”

She looked up but trained her eyes somewhere to the left of my face.

“Maybe I love you. Maybe we can make this work. But love requires no promises, no grand declarations. So no promises, okay? Just you and me like we’ve always been, but more… together?”

She nodded and stood up.

“Just let me lock up and I’ll walk you home.”

I went to the back office to grab my keys and my phone. By the time I came back out, she’d already left.

But she came back again the next morning, glowing bright gold. And I served her coffee – low-fat latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon and whipped cream on top.