it isn’t like a rom-com. i don’t slide into the seat next to him like i belong there, i don’t steal his cup holder with my beer as an excuse to talk to him, i don’t steal his big foam finger and poke it playfully in his face when aaron rodgers does something stupid and we have no choice but to laugh about it, i don’t let him steal the big foam finger back when aaron rodgers inevitably makes up for his stupidity like sports men do and we both scream ourselves hoarse, i don’t say “they’re so fucking cute” to him when shailene woodley runs out on the field after the game-winning touchdown and aaron rodgers gets down on one knee to propose to her and i don’t gasp like everyone else does, i don’t ask him if he sees that too that thing i’m seeing that looks suspiciously like a UFO hovering just over the scoreboard, i don’t velcro to his arm when the spacecraft zooms down like a targeted pass and lands on the field, i don’t lace my fingers into his as we make a run for it while alien life forces gun down the green bay packers and NFL employees and commentators and coaches and water boys with vaporizing rays. i don’t do that. this isn’t a romcom.

no, at the packers game, harry styles sits in a box and we have never met. but i watch him drink beers from my seat four entire sections away, a speck like dust on a map. my eyes, metamorphosizing into microscopes, catch him in the act as aaron rodgers scores. darting out first, a landing pad for the neck of a bottle, an extraterrestrial tongue.