The flat was quiet except for the sound of running water and the occasional clink of crockery against the drying rack.

Joseph stood at the sink with his sleeves pushed up, staring absentmindedly out the kitchen window while washing the last of the dinner dishes. His flatmate had long since migrated to the sitting room, leaving a football match humming somewhere in the background.

His phone buzzed against the counter.

Once. Then silence.

Joseph glanced toward it and immediately looked away again.

"Not urgent enough to call," he muttered.

The plate went into the rack. The glass followed.

Whatever notification had arrived could wait. Most things could these days.

At thirty-tw.o, he'd developed a healthy skepticism toward excitement. Particularly the sort that arrived through an app.

Months earlier, on a whim more than anything else, he'd reactivated an old dating profile. Not because he expected to meet the love of his life. Mostly because friends kept insisting he should.

Apparently, according to people who had never spent an evening scrolling through dating apps, romance was only a few swipes away.

Joseph knew better.

The reality usually involved awkward small talk, conversations that vanished without explanation, people who seemed fascinating for twenty minutes and exhausting thereafter, and an endless parade of introductions that never became anything substantial.

He wasn't bitter about it. Just tired.

The truth was he'd spent years drifting in and out of connections that felt exciting in the moment but never seemed built to survive real life. Work schedules. Different priorities. Geography. Timing.

Sometimes there simply wasn't enough there. Other times there was too much of the wrong thing.

Either way, he had reached a point where expectations felt more dangerous than disappointment.

By the time he finished cleaning the kitchen, the notification had already slipped from his mind.

An hour and a half later, freshly showered and dressed in an old T-shirt and track bottoms, Joseph found himself sprawled across the sofa with a cup of tea balanced precariously on the armrest.

Only then did he finally unlock his phone.

A match. Raya.

He stared at the screen.

The profile looked nice enough. Interesting, even.

Which somehow made him more suspicious.

"Right," he said to nobody. "Let's see how long this lasts."

He set the phone down. Picked it up again.

Typed three words. Deleted them.

Tried again.

Deleted those too.

The problem wasn't nerves. The problem was optimism. Optimism required effort.

Eventually he settled on something simple.

No performance. No clever opening line.

No attempt to impress a complete stranger.

Just a message. A small one.

The sort of thing that could disappear unanswered into the void without causing any lasting damage.

Joseph pressed send.

Hi. Hope your evening's been alright.