I just went out to get a facial. That's it. That's the whole plan. Go in, get the glow, come home. Instead I walked into the wrong door, ended up in an Apple Store, and met a 25-year-old named Christian who had perfect curls, an Obama smile, and the audacity to not know the difference between purple and orange.
We talked for a while. He was playful — but professional, because he was at work. At some point he mentioned that the version of himself off the clock was the same way: "with my friends I'm like this too." I filed that away. Then I asked what he was doing for his birthday. He talked about Puerto Rico — a trip he'd taken with his dad when he was younger. I asked if he'd go back. He said yeah. He said maybe with his friends.
Two chances to say girlfriend. He didn't take either one.
I clocked his birthday (March 25th, which would make him 26), his career dream (college football coach — why not pro, though?), his 23andMe story, his cross catching the light off the Apple logo at exactly the right moment. My brain was running data on a man I'd known for eleven minutes.
That's the thing about being high-functioning neurodivergent. Regular people meet someone interesting and think oh, that was nice. I went home and wrote a song.
The song wrote itself, honestly. The wordplay showed up on its own — the football metaphors, the "shoot my shot / swish," asking for "Apple care at all times for customer service." I was in my pajamas, looking like somebody's mama, and absolutely spiraling in the most creative way possible.
Then I had to decide what to do with it. Do I give it to him? AirDrop it and walk out? Leave a number? Just… keep it?
I thought about AirDropping it with a matchbook card and bouncing. That version of the plan was actually kind of perfect — he'd get to listen in private, no pressure, no awkward eye contact while he figured out how to respond to a full song about himself written by a woman he'd known for less than fifteen minutes.
But the smarter version of me said: go back, ask him out casually, and if it turns into something real, then you can tell him. And at that point it becomes a great story instead of a workplace incident.
The even smarter version of me said: write the song, put it in the album, and let it exist as what it actually is — a portrait of the exact moment before you shoot your shot, when you're fully aware of the absurdity and you're doing it anyway.
So the joke is this is why I'm single. But also: the song is excellent, I got a whole rockabilly album out of this energy, and Christian — if you're ever reading this — the offer to trace football plays across my tattoos still stands.
I'm kidding.
Maybe.
Touchdown?
Reality Check, Please. — out May 29. Available everywhere.