Last updated on September 17, 2025
Leaning forward with genuine curiosity, Nikki begins, “I’ve been thinking about how we actually influence each other without realizing it. There’s this fascinating concept in neuroscience about mirror neurons , basically, our brains are literally wired to unconsciously mimic and internalize the emotions and behaviors of people we’re close to. We don’t just choose someone because we love who they are; we actually become more like them, and they become more like us.”
” You know, it’s funny you mention mirroring,” Andy says, running his hand through his hair with a wry smile, “I’m literally learning about consumer psychology in my MBA marketing class, and I keep catching myself using these ‘influence techniques’ at open houses. Like, I’ll mirror a couple’s body language when they’re looking at a kitchen, and suddenly I’m thinking ‘Am I being authentic or am I just deploying Cialdini’s reciprocity principle?'”
Laughing, she shakes her head. “Oh god, you’re having an existential crisis about whether you’re genuinely connecting or just marketing. Are we “Beautiful Creatures” to be satirized by an English novelist?” she jests rhetorically. “That’s like when I catch myself using my ‘therapeutic voice’ with patients , am I being compassionate or am I just following the de-escalation protocol I learned in nursing school?”
With exhaled frustration, Andy continues, “Exactly! And the worst part is, I’m doing this unpaid right now during training, so I’m literally practicing psychological manipulation for free.” He pauses, considering. “I keep thinking about these studies on ‘anchoring bias’ , like, should I show them the overpriced house first so the reasonable one looks like a steal? But then I’m like, these people are stretching their financing already…”
“That’s very different from my anchoring,” Nikki grins mischievously, “like when I tell patients their IV might feel like ‘a little pinch’ when I know damn well it’s going to hurt. But hey, at least I’m getting paid to lie about needle pain. You’re out here doing emotional labor for experience points.”
Andy chuckles despite himself. “Right? Though I guess we’re both in the business of managing expectations and outcomes. You’re just dealing with actual life and death instead of whether someone gets a two-car garage.”
Shifting in his seat, Andy’s voice grows more serious. “But see, this is exactly why I hate when people talk about relationships like they’re business deals. Like, my real estate training is all about ‘value propositions’ and ‘mutual benefit’ , which is fine for houses, but the moment someone starts talking about love that way, I’m out.”
“What do you mean?” Nikki tilts her head with genuine interest.
“Like when people say ‘what does this person bring to the table?’ or ‘relationships are about give and take,'” Andy says with building intensity. “It’s so… transactional. The whole point of choosing someone is that it’s not a transaction , it’s that you keep choosing them because they make you want to be better, not because they’re meeting some checklist of needs.”
Nikki teases with a knowing smile, “Says the guy who just spent ten minutes analyzing consumer psychology…”
“That’s different! Houses are commodities. People aren’t,” Andy responds with passionate conviction. “When you love someone, you’re not getting something from them , you’re becoming something because of them. Like your mirror neuron thing , we don’t consciously decide ‘I’ll take on this trait in exchange for that behavior.’ We just… absorb the best of each other.”
Leaning back, Nikki processes this. “So you think love is more like… unconscious transformation than conscious choice?”
“Exactly,” he said with quiet certainty. “It’s like , I don’t want someone to love me because I’m useful or because I check boxes. I want them to love me because something about who I am calls out something better in who they are. And vice versa. That’s not a transaction , that’s alchemy.”
Eyes widening with understanding, Nikki says softly, “That’s actually beautiful. And kind of terrifying.”
“Why terrifying?” Andy asks with curious vulnerability.
“Because it means we’re all changing each other, without really knowing how or why,” Bavia says with a slight tremor in her voice.
Nikki swirled her wine, watching the liquid obscure the candlelight. The restaurant hummed around them, but their corner table felt suspended in its own gravity, familiar yet precarious.
“I need to tell you something,” Andy said to shift the conversation, his hand resting near hers on the table, not quite touching. “My love is as thin as my skin.”
A small frown creasing her brow. “Andy”
“It’s comprised entirely by how the makeup of my life, the psychological balance, the world of my affections—how they all confront me.” He spoke with the careful precision of someone who’d rehearsed this. “‘No love is ever more or anything less than what that allows.”
Her fingers found the edge of the table as she set down her glass. “That sounds like you’re drawing boundaries before I even know what I’m walking into.”
“We all bleed losses through the chemical mappings of our wounds, as much as the joys in our smiles” he continued, his voice softer now. “It’s easier to stall progress than to leap past boundaries. I know that about myself.”
“That’s one way to see it.” Nikki’s voice carried its own certainty now. “Shouldn’t patterns be known.”
Andy watched her carefully. “What trait or failing do you count as most important?”
“Innate strength. The kind that creates security rather than seeking it.” She spoke with growing clarity. “I want to discover what it feels like to be genuinely safe with someone protected from masks and vulnerabilities, but also safe in the relationship itself.”
Andy nodded slowly and then asked thoughtfully rather than to challenge. “Must a home be smoldering to have worth?”
Studying him. “What do you mean?”
“The strength and protection you value. I’m trying to understand if they’re responses to difficulty, or, if they exist independently.” Andy spoke with genuine curiosity, his tone exploratory. “Because when love is always proving itself against external pressures, it can become more about managing circumstances than recognizing the person.”
Nikki considered it. “You think I conflate crisis management with intimacy?”
“I think maybe we both do, sometimes.” His admission was incisive, without self-deprecation. “When someone’s worth gets measured by how well they handle turbulence, anyone who can weather storms becomes functionally equivalent.”
“That sounds…” Nikki paused, processing. “Clinical.”
“Maybe. But also honest.” Andy’s gaze was steady, neither defensive nor apologetic. “If the deepest connections happen during difficulties, then what defines the relationship is the difficulty itself, not the people in it.”
Nikki was quiet for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the table between them. “Maybe that’s the wrong question,” she said finally, her voice smaller than before. “Maybe the question is whether you’re willing to find out what’s left when the smoke clears.”
Andy felt something shift in his chest, a loosening he wasn’t sure he welcomed. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not simple.” Nikki’s voice carried the weight of recognition. “But it might be possible. If we both want it to be.”
The word ‘both’ hung between them, an acknowledgment of shared responsibility, shared risk. Andy reached across the table, his touch deliberate and sure as his fingers found hers.
“Distress and hardship evoke patterned responses to maintain efficiency. They cannot leave room for depth when the stress response to survival is put to the question” he said with quiet certainty. “Are strength and innate security hallmarks of familiar performances or are they freed for display when authenticity is unburdened.”
Their eyes met, her fingers intertwined with his. “When is the person not the function. Are we drawn to traits or identity perceptions?”
They sat with that honesty between them, the familiar weight of it. Around them, other diners laughed and clinked glasses, but at their table, the air felt charged with possibility and caution in equal measure.
“So what do we do?” Andy asked finally.
“I don’t know yet.” Nikki’s answer was honest, unadorned. “But I’m willing to figure it out if you are.”
He nodded slowly, as both stood to exit the restaurant with the understanding that this wasn’t a resolution but a beginning—or perhaps a continuation of something they’d been circling for longer than either wanted to admit.
The cool evening air hit them as they stepped outside, Nikki pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders. “I’m terrified by mirror neurons,” she reiterated immediately in pursuit of solace, her voice carrying intensity. “Because if they’re constantly rewiring us during every meaningful interaction, how do we maintain any sense of authentic self? Are we just walking composites of everyone we’ve ever connected with?”
“Well,” Andy replied cautiously, falling into step beside her as they walked through the parking lot, “our lifeworlds are mostly established by adulthood. The fundamental patterns, the core neural architecture – that’s relatively stable.” Her heels clicked softly on the asphalt as he continued. “But it’s the identity slips that are concerning. Those moments when the established patterns get overwritten.”
“Look up,” he said suddenly, stopping and tilting his head toward the sky. “Do you see those silvery clouds? The ones that almost glow?”
Nikki fumbled in her purse for her keys while glancing upward. “Those wispy ones? They’re beautiful.”
“Noctilucent clouds,” Andy said, his voice filled with wonder. “They’re so high in the atmosphere – nearly at the edge of space – that even though the sun has set for us, they’re still catching its light.” He pointed toward the quarter moon hanging above them. “Eighty-five kilometers up, ice crystals suspended in the mesosphere, illuminated by a sun we can no longer see.”
As they reached her car, Nikki finally found her keys but didn’t immediately unlock the door. She looked up again, then back at him. “Ice crystals catching invisible light,” she said softly. “I’m terrified, Andy, because if we’re so readily changed by mirror neurons during normal conversation…” Her voice grew quieter as she leaned against her car door. “What is occurring during moments of intense arousal? When we’re like those clouds – suspended so high that we’re catching light from sources we can’t even see anymore?”
He stood very still, watching her in the moonlight. “Nikki…”
“No, seriously,” she continued, her voice gaining intensity as she gestured toward the glowing clouds above them. “If just talking over dinner is rewiring our brains, what happens when every neural pathway is firing at maximum capacity? When inhibitions drop and the prefrontal cortex essentially goes offline?” She looked directly at him. “When we’re suspended that high, catching light from places our conscious minds can’t even reach?”
Andy stepped closer, his voice low. “You’re asking what happens when the mirror neurons have complete access,” he said quietly, his eyes reflecting the quarter moon. “When there are no cognitive filters, no conscious barriers. When we’re floating in that mesosphere of consciousness.”
“Exactly,” she whispered, her keys still clutched in her hand as she remained leaning against the car. “We become completely permeable to each other. Like those ice crystals up there – each one catching and reflecting light that shouldn’t even be visible.”
Silence filled the void between them as the moment softened. Andy tugged the handle of her door and their embrace slipped away until she was seated in her car and driving away.
Andy returned home through familiar streets, streetlights casting intermittent pools of amber across his windshield. The kiss replayed in his mind—had it landed with the oscillating rhythm of the night as an enticement, or had she filed it away like something safely contained in a desk drawer? His directness at the end, that sudden lean forward—did it build the tension he’d felt crackling between them all evening, or had it chilled everything into awkward retreat?
He couldn’t shake the impossibilities of their meeting 22 years ago in Decatur, Ga on her birthday, the unafforded time it would take for him to forget his ingrained withdrawal, and to reflectively dawn as part of the psychological microchimerism of her world. The combative temperance for survival that he had known wasn’t her burden, even if the meaning of falling was relative for both of them. He found himself redrawing the past with what-ifs, connecting that first moment to purposes he couldn’t, like her, simply let go of.
Back in his apartment, Andy changed into sweatpants and settled into his armchair. The evening felt unfinished somehow, suspended. He picked up his phone, hesitated, then called her.
The phone rang twice before her voice came through, slightly breathless.
“I just walked in,” Nikki said, and he could hear keys being set down, the soft thud of a purse hitting a counter.
“Good.” Andy settled back into his armchair, the leather creaking beneath him. “I kept thinking about what you said earlier.”
“Which part?” There was rustling on her end—maybe she was kicking off her heels, he thought. The intimacy of that small sound made his chest tighten.
“About how we construct ourselves in relation to others.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “I think I understand now why that unsettles you.”
Nikki was quiet for a moment. He heard water running—she was probably washing her hands, going through those small evening rituals. “Do you?”
“The vulnerability of it,” Andy said softly. “How we become permeable.”
“Yes.” Her voice had grown warmer, more present. “Exactly that.”
He found himself smiling in the dark of his living room, lamplight casting familiar shadows on walls he’d stared at for months. “I was wondering—” He stopped, started again. “There’s a home game next Saturday. Tailgating starts early, but it’s…” He searched for the right words. “It’s community. Shared experience without the pressure of performance.”
“You’re inviting me to a football game?” There was gentle amusement in her voice, but something else too—curiosity, maybe hope.
“I’m inviting you to be part of something with me.” The honesty surprised him. He heard her intake of breath across the line.
“Andy…”
“I know you understand networking,” he said, then caught himself. “That came out wrong. I mean—yes, it’s good for business, being visible in the community. But I want you there with me.”
He could hear her moving around what he imagined was her apartment, probably switching on lights, maybe starting tea. The ordinary sounds of someone settling into their evening space.
“I’ve been to plenty of tailgates,” Nikki said, amusement threading through her voice. “The question is whether you’re ready for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re intense, Andy. All that manufactured community spirit, the performative belonging.” She paused. “Is this about your real estate networking or about us?”
The directness of it caught him off-guard. “Both,” he admitted. “Does that make me terrible?”
“It makes you honest.” Her voice had softened. “And practical. I respect that.”
The relief that flooded through him was immediate and overwhelming. “Really?”
“Really.” Her voice had shifted, grown playful. “Though I should warn you, I know absolutely nothing about football.”
“Good thing I’m not inviting you for your sports commentary.”
Nikki laughed—a real laugh, unguarded. “What time?”
“Four? I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.” There was contentment in her voice now, settling. “Andy?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For tonight. For calling.” She paused. “For seeing me.”
He closed his eyes, phone pressed close to his ear. Outside, the night had grown quiet except for the distant hum of late traffic. “Thank you for letting me.”
After they hung up, Andy sat in his chair for a long time, phone still warm in his palm. The weight of possibility felt different now—not heavy with the uncertainty that had plagued his drive home, but rich with promise. Saturday afternoon stretched ahead of them, a chance to navigate something real together without the careful choreography of first-date conversation.
He thought again about that moment when he’d leaned in to kiss her, how she’d met him halfway instead of retreating. Maybe his directness hadn’t been too much after all. Maybe what he’d mistaken for her withdrawal was simply her way of processing, of making space for something genuine to take root.
Rising finally to lock the front door and switch off the lamp, Andy found himself already imagining the weekend, Nikki beside him in the early September heat, both of them figuring out how to belong somewhere together. The social isolation he’d carried for so long didn’t feel quite as necessary anymore. Some purposes, he realized, were worth the risk of letting go/
