Page 10 of The Cyrano Situation
His response came almost immediately: "This is perfect! It sounds super intellectual but personal. Jules is going to love it."
I closed my laptop and finished my wine, trying to ignore the small flutter of anticipation in my chest. This was still a terrible idea, an ethical gray area at best and outright deception at worst.
But as I went through my evening routine—washing my glass, brushing my teeth for exactly two minutes, setting out tomorrow's clothes—I found myself wondering how Jules would respond. Would he appreciate the Cage reference? Would he have a counterargument about written versus verbal communication?
For the first time in longer than I cared to admit, I was genuinely curious about another person's thoughts.
When I got to my bed from the bathroomn that night, I realized I'd forgotten to count my steps. As I slipped under the covers, and set my alarm for 6:15, I tried to ignore the reason for the small smile on my lips. It definitely wasn't about the new variable in the equation: Jules28, literature professor, appreciator of Japanese mysteries and the spaces between words.
Tomorrow would be another carefully structured day: shower, breakfast, eleven blocks to the office. Red pen on manuscripts, turkey sandwich for lunch, literary fiction on my e-reader.
Jules28 might be a disruption to my routine, yes. But perhaps, just this once, a welcome one.
I stared at my phone as though it had spontaneously transformed into a venomous reptile. The text message—a mere seven words, objectively innocuous—glowed on the screen with what felt like radioactive menace:
Hi, how's your day going? :)
Twenty-three characters including spaces. One smiley face emoticon. And not even a proper emoji, just the colon-parenthesis variety that people had been using since the dial-up days. Nothing remarkable whatsoever.
And yet my heart hammered against my ribcage as if I'd just completed a triathlon.
"It's been seventeen minutes," I muttered, glancing at the timestamp. "Is seventeen minutes too long to wait before responding? Too short? Is there an optimal response time that communicates interest without desperation?"
I was sitting in my apartment, a modest one-bedroom in Park Slope that I'd managed to secure only because the previous tenant had been my second cousin twice removed, and thelandlord had a soft spot for family continuity. The rent was still criminal, but marginally less so than market rate. My laptop was open to a manuscript I was supposed to be editing. It was a promising thriller about art forgery that, unfortunately, kept confusing Monet with Manet, but Jules's message had derailed any hope of productivity.
"This is absurd," I informed my empty living room. "I have two master's degrees. I can diagram sentences in five languages. I've read Proust in the original French. I should be able to respond to a simple greeting without experiencing cardiac distress."
I picked up my phone, put it down, picked it up again. The screen had gone dark, so I tapped it to illuminate Jules's message once more.
That smiley face. That damnable, inscrutable smiley face.
I opened my laptop browser and typed "meaning of smiley face in text messages" into the search bar. Fourteen milliseconds later, I was scrolling through a listicle titled "What Those Emojis REALLY Mean: The Hidden Language of Digital Flirtation."
According to the article (published on a site called LoveBytes.com, which immediately made me question its scholarly rigor), the basic smiley face was "friendly but noncommittal." But when followed by no additional emoji, it could indicate "cautious interest" or "polite disengagement."
"Fantastic," I muttered. "Schrödinger's emoticon."
My phone vibrated. I nearly launched it across the room in surprise before realizing it was just Hart calling.
"Have you responded yet?" Hart asked without preamble.
"Hello to you, too," I said. "And no, I have not responded, because I'm busy conducting a comprehensive analysis of the sociolinguistic implications of the colon-parenthesis smiley face."
"Oh my god." Hart's laugh was warm even through the phone's tinny speaker. "You're overthinking a smiley face? That's adorable."
"I'm not overthinking," I protested. "I'm thinking the appropriate amount for someone whose prospective romantic future might hinge on proper emoji interpretation."
"Okay, Professor Overthinker. What have you learned in your exhaustive research?"
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "According to a 2018 study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, emoticon usage increases perceived warmth by approximately 43 percent but can decrease perceptions of competence by 11 percent."
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Please tell me you made those numbers up," Hart said finally.
"I did not. The study had a sample size of 724 participants across three—"
"Cyril. My man. My dude. My favorite erudite overthinking machine." Hart's voice was patient but firm. "Jules asked how your day is going. With a smiley face. That means he's being friendly and wants to know how your day is going."
