Dating Good Men
Modern Romance. 1,300 words, 7 minute read. With Gemini.
A bead of sweat, a tiny fugitive escaping the powder patrol, plotted a course through Ellie’s foundation. Overhead, the lighting rig burned like a low-orbiting, malevolent sun, baking the airless studio despite the arctic blast of the AC. Ellie shifted, a rustle of borrowed silk against the chair – a sound amplified, no doubt, by the tiny microphone clipped like a dutiful, eavesdropping insect beneath her collarbone. Every sound magnified. Every breath potentially cataloged. Thirty-three years old, trading authenticity for algorithms, and now attempting the reverse alchemy in this brightly lit laboratory of romance. Trying to find a husband here? It felt like trying to grow moon orchids in a server farm. Utterly improbable.
Across the starched white expanse sat Jared.
He seemed, infuriatingly, immune. Perhaps he had internal air conditioning. Or maybe his composure was simply a fortress built on years of talk-show appearances and podcast proclamations. His suit jacket, a dark sentinel, remained buttoned. Mr. Conservative Principles. Podcaster Prime. A man representing a demographic she usually poked with the digital stick of snarky quote-tweets. Yet, here he was, dropped onto her dating chessboard by the mischievous gods of reality TV production. Stability. She craved it, yes, but the word often arrived arm-in-arm with its judgmental cousin, and Ellie had danced with that particular relative far too often. Could this man, whose brand was built critiquing the very chaos she once surfed, possibly stomach her vibrant, messy history – a past that felt like a suitcase crammed with glitter, questionable receipts, and a few smuggled fireworks?
"Impressive setup," Jared observed, his voice a smooth baritone designed, it seemed, for both rallying the troops and soothing ruffled feathers. His gaze swept the room, the faux-marble columns standing like slightly embarrassed Roman wannabes. "Though," he added, a conspiratorial twinkle, "I suspect the food budget doesn't quite match the wattage overhead."
"Priorities," Ellie quipped, a smile flickering. Time to zag. Forget the pre-approved script. "Your listeners, the devoted legions – what's the one tune they keep humming about you that's totally off-key?" Keep it breezy, Ellie. Curiosity, not cross-examination.
His eyebrows did a tiny, almost imperceptible Vaudeville hop. "Direct," he noted, amusement warming the edges of his voice. No fidgeting. Impressive. As self-contained as a Fabergé egg. "The biggest misconception? That I'm hermetically sealed in an echo chamber. That 'conservative' is just a fancy word for 'ostrich'. The whole point," he gestured, "is dialogue. Doesn't mean I'll suddenly trade my core beliefs for a newer model," – a slight, deliberate emphasis – "but I find listening rarely causes actual brain damage."
"Convictions," Ellie murmured, the word echoing like a dropped pebble in the well of her anxieties. "So, when you're building this shared life, this mythical 'us'... what beams are absolutely load-bearing? Non-negotiable?" She studied the tiny universe swirling in her wine glass.
"Honesty," he declared, crisp and immediate. "The unvarnished kind, not the stuff you buff up for public consumption. Loyalty – knowing someone’s got your six, even when you’re navigating asteroid fields. And," he paused, his gaze locking with hers, a sudden laser beam in the hazy studio light, "a shared belief in the destination. Building something real. Raising a family. That's the port I'm sailing towards, not just a temporary dock for refueling."
That familiar knot tightened in Ellie’s stomach, cinched by the ghosts of questionable decisions past. Honesty. Loyalty. Destination. Easy coordinates to chart on TV. "My own navigational chart," she began, voice carefully modulated, aware of the listening ears, both human and electronic, "looks less like a straight line and more like… well, a Spirograph drawing made during an earthquake. Lots of public detours. How does that kind of journey sit with your meticulously planned voyage?" She spotted a camera lens peeking, a glass cyclops, from behind a tragically plastic fern.
Jared considered, swirling the deep red in his glass as if divining answers from fermented grapes. "History isn't destiny, Ellie. Everyone docks with baggage. Scratches, dents, maybe an ill-advised parrot on the shoulder." A ghost of a smile. "Solid doesn't mean pristine. It means commitment to the current construction. Are you designing the future, or just polishing souvenirs from past trips?" He held her gaze. A challenge wrapped in velvet. Suddenly, the absurd thought flashed – What filter would make this moment look less existentially terrifying? – she mentally swatted it away. Engage!
"If I were content polishing souvenirs," she countered, leaning forward slightly, her voice dropping conspiratorially, "I wouldn't be participating in this… glorified anthropological experiment disguised as dating. This whole glittering circus," she gestured vaguely, "is my application for 'Seriously Seeking Co-Pilot'. But finding one whose flight plan is even remotely compatible with mine, let alone who won't try to eject me over hostile territory? Statistically… unlikely."
He chuckled, a low, warm sound that felt blessedly unscripted. "Perhaps compatibility isn't about flying identical jets. Maybe it's agreeing on the cruising altitude? Respecting the other pilot's chosen route, even if yours involves fewer loop-the-loops?" He leaned closer. "And between us," his voice dropped further, "I despise those pretentious restaurants where the food arrives looking like it lost a fight with a weed whacker. Deconstructed? Just reconstruct my cheesecake, thank you very much."
Surprise, bright and bubbly as champagne, popped inside her. A real laugh escaped. "Oh, thank heavens! I thought I was the only Luddite left! It’s culinary IKEA – here are the parts, enjoy the assembly!"
"Precisely!" he grinned, and for a moment, the studio, the lights, the lurking cameras seemed to recede, leaving just two people finding unexpected common ground on the tiny, shared island of Proper Dessert Construction.
The meal unfolded. Steak. Halibut. Talk of careers, the peculiar pressures of curated public lives colliding like awkward bumper cars. She spoke of the dizzying tightrope walk – sharing curated vulnerability with millions while guarding her actual self like a nervous dragon guarding slightly tarnished treasure. He, in turn, spoke of the weight of expectation, the odd loneliness of being a symbol, the times he felt trapped inside the box his own audience had built. A confession dropped casually between bites: a surprising, shared love for truly terrible 90s disaster movies. Followed by a spirited, utterly pointless debate about the fundamental superiority of dogs over cats (he was tragically wrong, of course).
The analytical engine in her brain still hummed, dutifully noting his careful phrasing around certain topics, the way his hand tightened briefly on his knife when discussing online mobs. But the analysis now felt different. Less like building a case, more like assembling a complex, fascinating puzzle with half the pieces missing. He wasn't a monolith. He was a man, grappling with his own contradictions, reaching for connection across a divide wider than the table between them.
Then, silence fell as the plates were cleared, leaving a white desert of linen between them. A silence not empty, but pregnant with unspoken questions. Ellie looked at Jared, really looked. Beyond the labels, past the podcast persona. She saw the slight fatigue lines fanning from his eyes, the way his stillness wasn’t detachment, but a form of intense presence. He met her gaze, and the air crackled, a low-voltage current of possibility.
The waiter materialized, a ghost in a bow tie, dessert menus held aloft like peace treaties. His smile was serene, impartial, eternal.
"Have we," he inquired, his voice smooth as polished river stone, cutting through the charged quiet, "considered where we might like to go from here? Perhaps something… sweet?"
Ellie’s gaze drifted from the waiter’s placid face back to Jared’s watchful one. The lights seemed to pulse, just slightly. Dessert. Such a simple word. Such a terrifyingly complex choice.