On the uptown 1 train Wednesday evening, somewhere between 72nd and 96th, I watched two people be so in love it felt rude to keep looking, so obviously I kept looking.
They weren't touching much. That's what got me. No performance, no PDA for the car to admire. Just her head tipped toward his shoulder and his thumb moving slowly over her knuckles, like he was memorizing them.
She was telling him something with her hands, some story, and he was watching her face instead of listening to the words. I know that look. I've wanted that look.
Bollywood ruined me a little, I think. I grew up on grand gestures, running through airports, songs in the rain, love announced at full volume. And that stuff is beautiful, don't get me wrong, I still cry at DDLJ like it's my job.
But on the 1 train I understood something about the kind of love I actually want now, at 24, in this city that chews people up so casually.
I don't want the airport run. I want the thumb over the knuckles. I want someone who watches my face when I tell a story he's heard three times. I want the quiet version, the un-filmable version, the love that doesn't need an audience because it isn't for one.
The couple got off at 116th, still folded into each other, and the car felt colder without them, which is a stupid thing to feel about strangers but here we are.
I thought about the guy I've been sort of seeing, who is nice and funny and texts back at reasonable hours and gives me absolutely none of that feeling. And I thought, maybe I've been settling for pleasant when what I actually want is that thumb, that face, that quiet.
The 1 train kept going uptown. My stop came. I got off and walked home in the warm dark and let myself want the real thing.
Some people show you what you're missing just by existing near you for eleven stops.
Love,