It’s not that he was flirting, unless flirting was just about wanting to really see someone. People thought that someone like him — good-looking, young, cool clothes — was going to be dismissive, and when he wasn’t, when he was just easy and open with them, they glowed. It was a feeling he tried to re-create a hundred times a day, in every interaction. It also calmed him. If he looked at someone and they looked at him and there was a true connection, no matter how brief, then it meant that he didn’t need to replay the encounter anxiously afterwards, trying to find where it had all gone wrong.

It’s not that he was flirting, unless flirting was just about wanting to really see someone. People thought that someone like him — good-looking, young, cool clothes — was going to be dismissive, and when he wasn’t, when he was just easy and open with them, they glowed. It was a feeling he tried to re-create a hundred times a day, in every interaction. It also calmed him. If he looked at someone and they looked at him and there was a true connection, no matter how brief, then it meant that he didn’t need to replay the encounter anxiously afterwards, trying to find where it had all gone wrong.

– Jade Chang –

The Wangs vs. the World

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