I Ate Hotpot with Silence and He Wouldn’t Shut the Fuck Up
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📂 Filed under: Nervous System Hiccups, Romantic Derealization, Mirror Talk with a Man Who Doesn't Blink
🗓 Location: Somewhere between the gym and a serotonin crash
🧠 Status: Unregulated. Overbooked. Very online.
👥 Participants: Me. Silence. And the ghost of the version of me who only exists when someone stays.
There's a hotpot restaurant I go to when I'm lonely.
I always order for two.
I never say why.
Tonight, someone's already at my table.
Black hoodie. Jaw like memory. Smirk like a glitch in the simulation.
He's not real. He can't be.
But he's sitting in my chair.
ME:
No fucking way.
You're not—
SILENCE:
Too late. I'm already here. Ordered cabbage and everything. Your favorite, remember?
ME:
You look like—
SILENCE:
I know. Him. The one who made your nervous system safe, then disappeared the moment it stopped being a noise complaint.
But babe. I'm not him.
I'm what's left when he's gone.
ME:
So what, you're grief?
SILENCE:
No. I'm the pause that follows.
I'm the quiet after the dopamine playlist ends.
I'm the echo of a version of you that only came out when someone stayed.
ME:
Shut up.
SILENCE:
You first.
We sit.
Hotpot boils.
Cabbage wilts.
My hands shake just a little. I pretend it's the spice.
SILENCE:
He wasn’t just a regular date.
He was special.
Not because he saw all of you.
But because when he stayed—your brain finally stopped sprinting.
You didn’t feel high.
You felt held.
And that’s rarer than love.
ME:
You're cruel.
SILENCE:
I'm honest.
And honesty sounds like cruelty
when you've been surviving on hope.
ME:
It's just… when he sat in that seat—your seat—
I believed it.
That I could be enough.
That I didn't have to perform to feel like a person.
SILENCE:
Of course you believed it.
Because it was true.
But only when he was there.
That's what haunts you.
Not the loss.
The proof that it was possible.
ME:
Why can't I feel whole on my own?
SILENCE:
But babe! Said WHO?
ME:
What?
SILENCE:
Who the fuck told you that needing someone is some kind of spiritual failure?
You're a social mammal, not a fucking cactus.
Your nervous system is literally designed to sync with other humans.
The shame you feel about missing him?
That's not your intuition, baby.
That's capitalism dressed as self-help.
ME:
But I'm supposed to be healed—
SILENCE:
HEALED FROM WHAT? Being human?
Babe, you're not a broken iPhone that needs a software update.
You're a goddamn constellation.
And constellations? They shine brighter when there are other stars around.
The hotpot bubbles louder.
Or maybe that's my nervous system short-circuiting.
ME:
So now what? I just... sit with wanting?
SILENCE:
You sit with being magnificent while you want.
You eat your cabbage like the bad bitch you are
even when no one's there to watch you not gag on it.
You flood your calendar not to outrun the ache—
but because you genuinely love your life.
Even when it's loud.
A pause. Steam rises between us.
ME:
I thought Peace™ meant being able to feel whole alone.
To not need anyone to feel not lonely.
SILENCE:
Baby, no.
Peace™ isn't emotional botox.
It's knowing you're still that fucking icon
whether someone's here or not.
It's wanting partnership from overflow,
not from the bargain bin of your self-worth.
It's the difference between:
"Please notice me so I can exist"
and
"I exist beautifully, wanna witness it?"
You know what I mean?
Silence picks up a cabbage leaf and eats it like it's a metaphor.
I want to scream.
ME:
I miss him.
SILENCE:
DUH.
He regulated your nervous system
without making you audition for it.
That's not something you "manifest your way out of."
That's something you tag on the walls of your city and say thank you.
ME:
But I'm here. Without him.
SILENCE:
And you're still that bitch.
Still brilliant.
Still jacked.
Still writing articles that make strangers cry in coffee shops.
The longing doesn't diminish you.
It validates you.
It means you know what good feels like.
A beat.
A hum.
The restaurant is full, but the table still feels like a tomb.
ME:
I've been trying to mute you.
To make you go away.
SILENCE:
I know you were.
You needed to figure this out on your own.
I'm here to sit with you while you miss him.
You're not fucking broken.
The version of you that wants love?
Iconic.
The version that knows you're worthy of it?
Also iconic.
The version that misses him
AND the version building an empire in his absence?
Same bitch. Different Tuesday.
ME:
Even when I'm lonely?
SILENCE:
ESPECIALLY when you're lonely.
Because loneliness isn't your villain origin story.
It's proof you have exquisite taste in nervous system regulation.
You're holding space for the kind of partnership
that doesn't ask you to dim your fucking light.
And baby—you're holding that space like the gay cathedral architect you are.
I don't cry.
That would be too cinematic.
I just sit.
Silence across from me.
Steam on my face.
Presence in the shape of a man who never leaves.
Not because he loves me.
But because he is me.
SILENCE:
Finish your cabbage.
We've got a whole life to stay for.
And babe—this time, no one's leaving.
🌀 FILE CLOSED: CONVERSATION WITH MY SHADOW
Status: Unmuted
Location: Internal
Witness: Me
Soundtrack: That low hum you only hear when the playlist ends