I have spent the last few days inside 4,150 messages of exclamation marks, cancelled reservations and one man submitting a full corporate proposal to a woman who keeps replying with a smiley and a prayer emoji.
You are not in a talking stage. You are not even in the talking stage’s waiting room. You are a one-man recruitment drive for a job she never advertised, standing outside a laksa shop in Katong at 7.30pm with a table for two, refreshing your phone like it owes you money.
Let’s read your application.
The Applicant and the Template
Ashwin: The No-Pressure Pressure Cooker
You are the only man in history to make the words no pressure sound like a ransom note. Your messages arrive like annual reports, with headings, ranked laksa stalls and a sign-off of no pressure!, a phrase that has never once been typed by a man without any. When she goes quiet you do not wait; you follow up, then follow up on the follow-up, like a debt collector with a lovely personality:
Hey! Just checking in 🙂 No pressure at all btw! Also found a new laksa place, will send the list later 😄
Will send the list later, as though anybody had asked for the list. You have mistaken enthusiasm for a strategy and volume for charm, and for six weeks it has worked in the narrow sense that nobody has been rude to your face. Every no pressure is a tiny invoice demanding credit for how relaxed you are being, and she can feel it through the screen like heavy breathing on the other side of a toilet cubicle door.
Chloe: The Rain Check Factory
Chloe runs the most efficient rain check factory in Singapore, turning out warm, beautifully punctuated cancellations on demand with no dates in any of them. Her replies are short, bright and completely empty, like a buffet tray with the label still on it. Here she is at 4.51pm, for a 7.30 table you had booked yourself:
so sorry!! something came up at work, rain check?? 🙏 let's see how the week goes! 😊
Let’s see how the week goes is not a plan, it is a weather forecast, issued every Monday by a meteorologist who refuses to look out of the window. She is not cruel; she simply cannot type the one clear sentence that would hurt a nice man, so she keeps you on file instead, which is kinder for her and costs you every Sunday. She is not turning you down, she is letting you turn yourself down slowly, at your own expense, with exclamation marks.
The Trap: The Rolling Shortlist
Every invitation in this chat goes in as a plan and comes out as a feeling. You suggest dinner and she says that’s so sweet; you suggest a date and she says sometime!; you book the table and she sends a prayer emoji. I call it the Rolling Shortlist: she has not rejected you, so you are still on it, and she has not accepted you, so you will be on it until the sun burns out.
Your half of the machine is No-Pressure Pressure, and it is why the machine never jams. Every cancellation becomes an exam in how gracious you can be, and you pass each one with distinction, which guarantees that nothing ever has a consequence and she never has to say the word.
You kept asking for a date and she kept thanking you for asking, and neither of you would say the sentence that ends it.
Your Private Dialect, Translated
No pressure! means I am catastrophically invested and would like a medal for hiding it badly. Just checking in 🙂 means your silence has been logged and escalated to management. Aw that’s so sweet means thank you, and no. Sometime! is a month with no name, no weather and no booking reference.
The tragedy is that you are both fluent. You are fluent in everything you want, she is fluent in everything she is avoiding, and she writes it so beautifully that you have never found a single flaw to argue with, only another smiley to accept.
A Live Reading: 5 September
At 11.48pm you sent the longest message in the archive, a numbered list of reasons you liked her, with a heading. Here is how it ended, and how it landed:
4. You laugh at your own jokes before you finish them and it's the best thing. Anyway! No pressure, just wanted you to know 🙂
aw that's so sweet of you! 😊
haha ok good, I was nervous sending that
gn!! 💤
You sent an offer letter and got a thank-you card, and then she went to sleep, which is the clearest thing she has said in six weeks. You poured out a numbered love letter at midnight and received the reply people give an auntie who forwards a nice sunset, and you answered haha ok good, like a defendant thanking the judge for the sentence.
The Timeline
9 August. You match and open with Katong or nothing?, she replies haha Katong obviously!, and it is the only enthusiastic sentence about a plan she will ever type.
22 August. The first dinner is cancelled because work is crazy this week, and you have rebooked before she finishes apologising.
12 September. The Katong table you booked yourself is cancelled at 4.51pm, and your no worries at all arrives within seconds, which is how a doormat says thank you.
20 September. You send just checking in 🙂 no pressure, and the silence underneath it is the most honest reply she has ever given you.
What You Each Wanted
Ashwin, you wanted to be told, kindly and in advance, that you were wanted, and instead of asking for one sentence you kept sending paragraphs in the hope she would match the length. A man who writes essays to get a one-liner back is not courting, he is buying replies by the kilo.
Chloe wanted time, and wanted things to stay nice until she found the words, and both wishes were granted in full at your expense. She has confused being gentle with being clear, and the difference is a bowl of laksa you are still waiting to eat.
The Ruling
What stage is this? It is the stage where you are in it alone and she is being polite about it. Six weeks, no dinners and a reservation in your name for a table nobody is coming to: you are not in a talking stage, Ashwin, you are in a monologue.
