“So you make people buy things they don’t need?”
I laughed. “No. I make the things people already need look like they deserve to exist.”
That line made him grin—the kind of grin that stays with you for days.
Over the next few weeks, our paths kept crossing. He turned out to be a product manager at a small software firm two blocks from my studio. Sometimes after work, he’d drop by with coffee and stories about debugging chaos or office politics. He spoke the language of logic and structure while I lived in sketches and color palettes. But somewhere between code and canvas, we met in the middle.
Our first real date wasn’t planned. It was a rainy Thursday when my bike chain snapped near the university district. I was late for a client meeting, soaked, and ready to curse the world when I heard someone call my name.
Daniel had been leaving a meeting nearby. He offered me a ride, and when I hesitated, he said, “It’s not pity. It’s logistics.”
That made me laugh, so I said yes.