The sign wasn’t dramatic. That was the problem.
Janet Morales had learned, over sixty-eight years, that subtlety was often mistaken for uncertainty. It never bothered her much—until she realized how often it cost her the very thing she was offering.
She sat at the corner table of a small Italian café, the kind that filled up early and stayed loud well past dinner. Janet liked arriving before the rush. It gave her time to settle into herself. A former small-business accountant, she still carried the habit of observation, noticing patterns most people rushed past. The way couples leaned toward or away from each other. The way conversations rose and fell. The way interest revealed itself long before words caught up.
Across from her sat Alan Fisher, seventy-one, widowed, thoughtful, and maddeningly cautious. They had met through a local walking group and fallen into an easy routine: coffee after walks, occasional dinners, long conversations that circled everything but the obvious. Alan liked Janet. That much was clear. What wasn’t clear—at least to him—was how much she wanted him to stop circling.
Janet leaned back in her chair as she spoke, uncrossing her arms, letting her posture open. She slowed her pace, allowing pauses instead of filling them. When Alan talked, she didn’t interrupt or deflect. She stayed with him, fully, eyes steady. To Janet, these were choices. Signals. Invitations.
To Alan, they were politeness.
Men misread this sign from older women every time because they expected desire to announce itself the way it once did—through teasing, nervous laughter, exaggerated interest. Janet didn’t do those things anymore. She didn’t fidget or overexplain. She didn’t chase reassurance. She simply made space and waited to see who was capable of stepping into it.
Alan noticed her calm but mistook it for distance. He assumed her ease meant she didn’t need more. That she was content with companionship and nothing else. He told himself he didn’t want to push, didn’t want to embarrass himself by wanting more than she did.
The irony almost made Janet smile.
When the waiter cleared their plates, Janet didn’t reach for her purse right away. She stayed still, hand resting on the table, fingers relaxed. She met Alan’s eyes and held them.
“You know,” she said evenly, “people assume that when women my age get quieter, they want less.”
Alan nodded, unsure where this was going.
“We usually want more,” Janet continued. “We’re just done spelling it out.”
Something in her tone—calm, grounded, unmistakable—finally landed.
Alan inhaled slowly. “Have I been missing something?” he asked.
Janet tilted her head, a small smile forming. “You’ve been misreading it,” she said. “There’s a difference.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was clarifying.
Men misread the sign because it didn’t beg to be seen. It waited. And Janet had learned she no longer needed to wave it around to make it real.
