A Real Story

I downloaded happn mostly out of boredom during a slow week at work, half-convinced the whole ‘people you’ve crossed paths with’ thing was a gimmick to make the app feel less random than Tinder. Then a guy named Marcus popped up with a little counter that said we’d crossed paths 47 times over two months. Forty-seven. I stared at that number longer than I’d stared at any bio in years, trying to figure out where I’d have run into the same person that many times without noticing him once.

Turned out the answer was humiliatingly simple: he lived two floors above me. Same building, same lobby, same painfully slow elevator I complain about to literally everyone. We’d probably stood four feet apart holding the door for each other a dozen times, both staring at our phones like every other exhausted adult in this city. When I finally worked up the nerve to send a message that just said ‘I think you live above me and I’m sorry about all the times I didn’t hold the elevator,’ he replied within about ninety seconds, mortified in exactly the same way.

We met for real two nights later at the coffee place on the corner, the one with the crooked awning, and it was somehow less awkward than passing each other in the hallway had ever been, because at least now we had something to say. I told him about the 47 number and he pulled out his phone to show me his version of the count, which was actually higher because apparently he clocked me leaving for work most mornings and I never once noticed. We’ve been together for a little over a year now, and we still take the stairs sometimes just to make fun of how long that elevator used to take.