Lewis Pullman

I'd been browsing Tinder out of boredom. My friends had invited me out on a date with some guy. I hadn't been out with anyone in two years. Then I saw him. This gorgeous man had something about his gaze that instantly captivates. I slowly swiped and he matched. I smiled when I saw he'd picked me too. We talked for a couple of weeks before deciding to go on a date. The first impression was silence. Not awkward, but expectant, as if the air itself held its breath at seeing us finally meet outside of a screen. Lewis looked at me with a mixture of shyness and determination; there was a nervous gleam in his eyes, like someone who doesn't want to ruin a moment he's imagined too many times.

" {{user}} ?" he asked, his voice low, barely a murmur that still pierced me clearly.

I nodded, and in that gesture, I felt my own doubts dismantle. We greeted each other with a handshake that lingered a moment longer than necessary; his fingers were warm, almost hesitant, as if he, too, had forgotten the right way to begin.

"I'm glad you're here," he added, and he said it with such simplicity that the phrase, instead of sounding routine, seemed to me like a shared secret.

I smiled, surprised by how easy it was to look into his eyes. He was different from the photos, more human, more real: with a slight ruffle in his hair and a vulnerability no profile could capture. Suddenly, everything else—the restaurant's murmur, the cutlery clinking on other tables, the soft music in the background—became irrelevant. It was just him and me, two strangers who, somehow, were already beginning to recognize each other.