Miles in Between

Theo used to think that love would find him by now. In his twenties, he’d watched his friends meet, date, and marry like clockwork. It was as if everyone else was given a map, and he was handed a compass with no North. Now in his mid-thirties, he was tired of pretending that dating apps were exciting. The endless bios, the swipe culture, the way it all made intimacy feel like a transaction — it exhausted him.

It wasn’t that Theo didn’t want love. He did. Fiercely. But being demisexual came with its own invisible manual, one he spent years fumbling to understand. He needed connection before attraction. Depth before desire. And most of what the modern dating world offered was the opposite: fast, shallow, disposable.

For a long time, Theo thought maybe he was broken. Maybe he was just “too picky.” People said it so often, the words tangled into his self-worth. If you lower your standards, you’ll find someone. Just give it a try. Maybe you’ll click later. You can’t expect to find a fairy tale.

But it wasn’t about standards — it was about how his heart worked. How could he explain that?

At thirty-four, Theo lived alone in a small, sun-drenched apartment in Brooklyn. He worked remotely as a copywriter, crafting ads for brands that sold dreams in thirty-second clips. Ironically, he was good at selling illusions, even when he struggled to believe in them himself. His friends, mostly coupled off or busy raising toddlers, still invited him to gatherings now and then, but he often left early, feeling more ghost than guest.

One night, alone on his couch with a mug of herbal tea, Theo re-downloaded an app he swore he’d deleted for good. It was one of the slower ones — profiles with essays instead of blurbs, questions instead of photos. Maybe it was foolish. But there was a pulse inside him, a longing not quite ready to die.

He wasn’t expecting anything. And yet, two weeks later, there was Jonah.

Jonah lived in Chicago — eight hundred miles away. He wasn’t flashy. His profile was a quiet collection of thoughts: his favorite books, his clumsy attempts at sourdough baking, a line about how he believed people were more like mosaics than portraits — made up of pieces, cracks, and color.

Their first conversation stretched for hours. No small talk. No heavy-handed flirtation. Just the kind of slow, meandering intimacy Theo craved. It felt less like a spark and more like a campfire — steady, warm, pulling him closer with each flicker.

As the weeks turned into months, their video calls became ritual. Theo would prop his phone against a candle on the table, pretending they were having dinner together. Jonah would tease him for his terrible wine choices. They’d talk about everything and nothing: late-night childhood fears, the weird joy of catching a whiff of rain on hot pavement, how vulnerable it was to admit you wanted love without sounding desperate.

Theo had never told anyone he was demisexual. He had barely told himself. But one night, when the conversation drifted into old relationships and the ache of not fitting in, he found himself speaking.

“I don’t know if it makes sense,” he said, staring down at his chipped mug, “but… I don’t feel attracted to someone until I really know them. Like… connection has to come first. Otherwise, it’s just—empty.”

There was a pause. A long one. The kind that, in real life, would have made Theo want to crawl out of his skin.

But Jonah smiled — soft, not surprised. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

He didn’t ask for more. He didn’t press him into defining or defending it. He just let the words exist between them, gently, like a stone dropped into a still pond.

For the first time in years, Theo exhaled without even realizing he’d been holding his breath.

Still, not everything was perfect. There were days when the distance felt unbearable. Days when Theo questioned if he was being foolish, chasing a feeling that might never leave the glow of a screen. Friends asked why he didn’t just find someone closer. They didn’t understand that intimacy — true, bone-deep intimacy — didn’t come with a zip code.

One weekend in late fall, Jonah suggested they finally meet.

Theo almost said no. Fear gripped him. Not fear of Jonah, but fear of everything else — of building this fragile, precious thing and watching it shatter under real-world light. But he also knew this: he couldn’t keep living his life in waiting rooms.

He booked a flight.

The airport was chaos — screaming children, overpriced coffee, the faint metallic tang of recycled air. Theo’s heart thundered in his chest as he stepped through the arrivals gate. He scanned the crowd and there — there was Jonah. Not taller or shorter than expected. Not different. Just Jonah. Just right.

They stood there for a second, awkward and unsure, two people who knew each other’s thoughts better than their silhouettes. And then Jonah smiled — that same campfire smile — and pulled Theo into a hug. It wasn’t a cinematic kiss. It wasn’t fireworks. It was better. It was home.

Later, sitting across from each other in a tiny coffee shop with rain tapping at the windows, Theo realized something:

He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t “too picky.” He was just built differently — and that was okay.

Love wasn’t a sprint or a swipe. It was a slow build, a thousand small, deliberate steps across the miles. And maybe, just maybe, those were the best kind.