"When I look at you, I can’t breathe." Jaehyun said it under the low amber lights of the Indian restaurant, his gaze earnest enough. I sipped my lassi and tried to ignore the gooseflesh on my arms. Yet I noticed his eyes slide past me, toward the mirror on the wall—checking the scene we made together rather than looking at me.
A blazing first encounter, and the ledger hidden behind it
Most male romance is a specimen: a recipe that once worked for someone else, repeated verbatim. Jaehyun was no exception. On our first date he quoted a line he’d posted on social media a week earlier—a prefabricated sentiment. In that brief sentence I read not heat but cold arithmetic: this line will soften her.
The moment he said he loved me, what he really wanted to witness was not me, but the spectacle of my reaction.
Catalogue of lies, four variations
1. "I can’t help where my eyes go"
In truth he wasn’t following his eyes; he was hunting for an opening. A stranger’s stilettos on the subway, laughter at the next table, a face on his phone—he scanned each, weighing possibility. When a man says his eyes wander, it means he hasn’t chosen whom to settle on.
2. "You leave me breathless"
The opposite: with you, his lungs open and every other appetite rises. Jaehyun told me, "When I’m with you I can’t speak." Moments later, back from the restroom, his thumbs flew over KakaoTalk. Breathlessness is merely a sign that more than one conversation remains unfinished.
3. "You’re different from anyone else"
This is the cruelest lie. He is actually calculating, Could you be exactly like the rest? The fear is not ending the same way, but beginning the same way. If he truly believed you were different, he would never bother to say it aloud. He says it because only the sentence itself can conjure your exceptionality.
4. "Right now I want something serious"
Oddly, this one is almost honest. He means he cannot be serious with you, so he wishes to be serious with the next woman. Jaehyun told me, "This time it’s real," and the next day texted a friend, "Still keeping it light."
Her dance, his silence
I heard about Serin. A man had approached her in a club while she danced. "Who are you here with?" he asked. "Alone," she answered. His pupils dilated at the arithmetic: a woman alone owes accountability to no one. That night was vivid—his hand on her waist, his murmured litany: I’ve never met anyone like you. Later he messaged a friend: Easy score. Solo girls are the simplest.
Why do these lies enchant us?
Romantic lies are the lies we order for ourselves. Serin knew every trembling phrase might be counterfeit, yet she needed them; without them she feared her own reflection would look too shabby.
"The more men lied, the more I wanted to listen—because if I heard the truth, I would lose every reason to want them."
Lies magnify desire, but not in the way we think. We don’t hope this time it might be real; we hope this time it is still a lie. A lie means possibility remains. If it were real and we failed to secure it, the story would be over. But if it is false, the next lie is already on its way—infinite chances unfold.
Final question
The night he said he loved you, why did you believe that gaze? Or rather, knowing it was a lie, why did you close your eyes? Perhaps what you truly wanted was not his love, but the lie of love itself.