The other was Nick. I couldn’t remember who said it first or feeling that sort of all-consuming passion I assumed one felt when they were in love; I just thought that I must love him since we had dated for so long. It wasn’t until after we broke up that I realized the truth: I was never in love with Nick. I enjoyed his company, and we had incomparable sexual chemistry, but we were never truly in love.

There was a third man to whom I had said the three magic words. His name was John or Josh or possibly Jeremy, and I had met him at a party shortly after I moved to New York. My blood brimming with MDMA, I confessed my love to this stranger on a makeshift dance floor in someone’s Williamsburg apartment. He responded by licking my cheek. I did not consider him one of the great loves of my life.

Max, though. Max might be different. I didn’t love him, of course—I’d only known him for five weeks—but I thought I might be able to see myself falling in love with him someday. Possibly someday soon. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I had been staying with Max for two weeks, ever since I first heard the eerie voice on the Luna Listen app, and it just seemed right. His apartment felt more like a home than my own—which, sure, could be because I’d never bothered to fully unpack, but maybe it was also because Max made everything so cozy and welcoming. At my place, I had fallen into the habit of eating frozen Trader Joe’s meals while perched on my beanbag chair, drinking wine and streaming something mindless on my laptop. At Max’s, I sat at his kitchen island while he cooked dinner—real dinners, like that curry and this fantastic chickpea-and-Swiss-chard thing—and we chatted about our days. And, unlike Nick, he really listened when I told him how things were going, even asking thoughtful follow-up questions. Then he would pull me into his strong, soap-scented embrace, and we would snuggle together on the couch, listening to records or watching something together, until we couldn’t stand the closeness a second longer and would fall on each other like lust-driven animals.

Cat kept asking me to stay with her instead, kept saying I was moving too fast with Max. “I’m worried,” she’d told me over the phone. “Someone’s going to get hurt.” But what did Cat know? She had been obsessed with the same man for the last seven years and had kissed him exactly once. By that yardstick, sure, Max and I were moving fast, but that was hardly a reasonable standard.

BUT AS MUCH as I loved living at Max’s, our relaxed routine was proving detrimental to my personal brand. I slipped in posting content, even neglecting my Instagram Stories. My loyal followers began sending me direct messages expressing their concern, asking if everything was okay. I assured them it was, but I couldn’t continue like this much longer—not if I wanted to maintain the social media presence I had worked so hard to cultivate.