It was May 2022 and I met a man on Hinge named Chris (for the sake of privacy). I told my parents I had met him on Stanford’s campus, because frankly they don’t understand the dating landscape of today. They had wed when they were 21 and 20 – a fact that I have not been able to wrap my head around.

So this man, Chris, and I began engaging in a fast and fun text-based conversation, first over Hinge, which quickly transitioned to an iMessage format. I was charmed by his quick wit and short spurts of messages, something I had found was a bit uncommon in men. I also liked the fact that we both worked at Stanford, me as an air quality researcher and him as a pediatric radiology researcher, I thought we might be a more even intellectual match that I was used to. We continued on for a few days until he asked if I was free on the upcoming Monday. Willing to entrust this man with the worst evening of the week, I agreed, but insisted that the date contain a key element: a psychic reading.I

Why exactly did I want a psychic reading? I don’t really know. Sometimes I just get these notions in my head that can’t be cleared until they are accomplished. The notion of that week: A psychic, of course. I had this image of us, hand in hand, sitting on a small padded bench. The bench would be slightly intricate, with a plum, plush seat and either gold or black details. And of course the bench would have those little feet. “How long will we know each other?” I’d ask the psychic. “Either two weeks, or two years,” she would respond, pleasantly. Then we’d look at each other and laugh, and she would tell us each a bit more about what our futures would hold. We would leave psychic talking and laughing, so incredibly excited about our futures.

Anyways, that’s what I wanted, and I told him I wanted that.

The game was on. He arrived in the city at 8:30 PM (he lived in The Vale, e.g. Sunnyvale), and had dilly-dallied his evening away.

He shot to me as he also notified me he was two train stops away from 22nd St.

I shot back, beginning to grow concerned

I threw on my leather jacket and picked him up from the train station. He had no plan, and every psychic was closed by the time we had finished up dinner, (Mexican-Filipino food we had taken to the park). Let down and feeling a bit text-fished, I dropped him back off at the train station. He texted me later that night that he was really sorry about the evening. He had said something quite off-putting when we were eating dinner in the park– that he had seen this hangout as a good excuse to get out of the house for the evening, sort of like a means-to-an-end to escape his demons for a few hours. Over text post-date he said it wasn’t like that, that he really liked me. And please, could I just give him another chance? He insisted he really didn’t want to fumble me.

He also started engaging in something called “power texting”. If you’ve ever interacted text-wise with someone that doesn’t quite have the emotional wherewithal for a close human connection, let me tell you it’s exhausting. We’re talking about 15+ texts in a row, half of them incoherent. It got to the point where I would text:

“I don’t want to txt anymore, I’m sleeping now”

And he would respond,

“No, just one more thing”

And send twenty more texts! It was exhausting. I didn’t even know this 25-year-old pediatric radiology researcher. At this point, he was disturbing dnd mode on my phone every night for considerable amounts of time. It got to the point where I completely turned my phone off– to hell with my alarm! He told me he felt like he needed to make up for the error of his ways with another date on Thursday. Truly, on probably the 100th text, he wore me down. I relented.

-ok- I dejectedly said.

-but srs take me to a psychic-

At that point, I had given up any sort of meaningful connection with this man. However, I still had a dream that I wanted to accomplish. At this point I was just in it for the psychic.

I ended up giving him a prime evening (the latter-half of Thursday night since I had rehearsal from 7-8:15 PM), and I agreed to dinner, then the psychic. My hopes were low, and once I came careening inside post-rehearsal to my basement apartment with my unwieldy cello on my back as I usually did, I saw my roommate, Anna Hunter Richardson, one of my favorite people.

“I really don’t want to go.” I confided in her. “It’s not going to be fun.”

“What if” she said with her characteristic devilish sparkle in her eyes.

“I was your psychic for the evening?”

Richardson dutifully began collecting bits of information from me about my date, storing them in her mind palace.

At that moment, I received a text from Chris asking me where I wanted to eat. Good god this was disappointing! After some slightly-more-than-frustrating back-and-forth, he shot me the address of a Thai restaurant in an adjacent neighborhood. I hastily ordered my uber and hopped in. The plan had now been set into motion. I arrived a couple minutes later than he did. It was pretty busy.

“Oh, I didn’t realize we might need reservations,” he said, awkwardly standing near the door.

“OK,” I said, walking into the restaurant and establishing our party size.

We’d arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes before last call, so we hurriedly ordered a green curry (him) and crispy basil duck (me). We shared, and mine was tastier. We finished quickly because the restaurant was closing, and I ordered an uber to our next location.

“Where are we going, seriously?” Chris asked me in the Uber. “Be honest, are you taking me to Pier 39?”

In my head I thought – why the fuck would I take him to Pier 39?!

“There’s these psychics in the neighborhood I heard about” I parried. We hopped out of the white Toyota camry in the heart of the Castro. I fucking love the Castro. At night, it’s really a magnificent sight. The street is bustling, there are overhead lines for the electric buses, flashing lights and pride flags everywhere and a tasteful amount of oddities.

On the corner near the train stop was a huge painted rainbow and a small area with large potted plants that offers a respite from the street. There, I saw two instantly recognizable figures: Richardson and Bell, two of my close friends.

“I see the psychics” I said, gently grabbing Chris’s arm and leading him slightly North. “I saw a reel today that said they would be doing free readings on the corner of Castro and Market from 9:45 – 10:15, and look! It’s 10! Just in time!”

He followed, trying to spot the psychics I was making a beeline to.

Once we reached the corner, I stood a respectful distance away from the table, taking it in. My friends had set up a small, square table and covered it with a beautiful fish-themed tablecloth. Richardson was dressed in her best psychic wear – a shirt she deemed “French-Chic” which was actually just a button-down pajama shirt with vertical stripes and red kiss marks. She often wore it as her “party jacket.” No one knows why. Richardson also had on a pair of Waymo sunglasses her mother had given her from a Waymo convention (Anna was staunchly anti-AI), and her stature was elongated by about one-and-a-half-foot tall wizard’s hat with moons and stars adorning it. Next to Richardson was J Bell, my first-tallest and second-most down-bitch friend (second only to Richardson). J was wearing a long, black, velvet robe and, like Richardson, had further elongated their figure with a less decorated, but still very stately, wizard-cap.

In front of the table was a large whiteboard with the hand drawn text: FREE PSYCHIC. The letters were massive and in bold font, not colored in.

I indicated to Chris to step forward with me, which he did.

“Hi!” I greeted the albeit very young psychics (is it true that psychics are usually middle-aged?).

“Hello,” Richardson responded, pensively. Her eyes were shrouded by the Waymo sunglasses, and she introduced herself as “Aushonte.” She was also putting on a very strong French accent. J introduced themselves as something or other.

Would you like to know your future? Richardson cooed, beckoning us forward.

“Yes” I said, breathless and forcing every muscle in my face to remain tense so I didn’t burst out laughing.

“A trick” Richardson continued, and drew a deck of cards from her pocket and spread them facedown on the table. She began mixing around the cards, and asked both me and Amol to pick specific cards, based simply on vibes. Then, Richardson methodically traced her hands along the edges of the cards and kicked someone under the table, which gave way to a small hand triumphantly holding a single card. Richardson snatched the card from the disembodied hand along with two other face-down cards we had chosen. She flipped them to reveal them as the very same cards she had asked us to find in the beginning. A marvelous trick. Chris, having never seen it before, was impressed. Me, having seen it ten plus times, was also impressed, but probably less so.

“I will now guess your names” Richardson solemnly continued. Richardson and Bell then rapidfired questions at both of us.

Richardson and J suddenly stopped, turned towards each other, and hummed, interlocking fingers.

“We have your names.” Richardson suddenly said, then ripped out two hot-pink post-its and scrawled on them, folded them up, then handed one to each of us. I opened mine up and feigned surprise as I saw “Simean” which was merely two letters off from my real name, Samea. Considering they had asked literally zero questions about our names, this was impressive. I looked at Chris, whose name was spelled one-letter off on his pink post-it. He looked shocked, but was not much for animated gestures. “The names may not be fully correct, for we are mere aspiring psychics” Richardson lamented. “Aspiring” Bell echoed, “we are in the beginning stages of our journey.” Bell and Richardson continued staring straight ahead.

I focused my attention back on Richardson. “I am sensing a well-educated woman…” she prostrated, waving her hands towards me. She closed her eyes and took my hand and began feeling the top and bottom, stroking gently. “I’m sensing air.. I’m sensing a search for truth … I’m sensing …” She opened her eyes. “Do you research the air?”

I feigned shock once again. “Yeah, I do air quality research!” I said, breathless. Richardson raised her hand to her head, and said “stop me when.”

Richardson’s hand sank slowly, and once it had dropped about 15 inches, I shouted, “stop!” The table began to shake, one would have to assume from the same being whose hand had assisted Richardson in the magic trick.

“Hmmmm,” Richardson said, deep in thought.

“Do you do your air quality research in … Palo Alto?”

I turned to Chris, who was starting to seem exceptionally impressed.

Bell and Richardson then linked hands and began to do a very slow wave, raising and lowering their arms like a true tide of the sea. It was a beautiful sight.

“These guys are so weird,” I whispered to Chris, trying to gauge a reaction. “Shh” he whispered, keeping his eyes on the aspiring psychics, “they’re legit.” It took every bone in my body not to break out in laughter.

It seemed like the tides had begun to turn, and that Chris had started wholeheartedly believing this duo of wizards on the street of the Castro. Richardson then did the same technique on Chris, asking him to stop her once she reached his place of work. She guessed Palo Alto again.

“Yeah” Chris said, “you totally got that!” Richardson handed Chris another hot-pink sticky note from the pad and asked him to draw something that symbolized his job. He drew an abstract sketch of a brain and handed back the slip. Richardson took the slip and held it between her hands.

“I’m sensing a burning of images, a burning, a burning! Brains, burning brains…”

“Are you good with children” inserted Bell, professionally.

“Yes,” Chris responded approvingly.

“Is this a child’s brain? Do you research children’s brains?”

Chris responded that he did, indeed, research children’s brains. He asked how Richardson had known the brain belonged to a child. Richardson responded that it was because of the size of it. I thought that didn’t make a lick of sense, but clearly I don’t know anything about the world of psychics.

After that, Chris abruptly took a phone call and walked to the gas station for around ten minutes. I stood by the psychics, asking them how long they’d been training. While Chris faced the other direction, the girl underneath the table (Nicolette) switched places with Bell. The height difference was distinct, especially given that Nicolette was at least a foot shorter than Bell and wasn’t wearing a wizard hat.

When Chris returned, the psychics traced our palms and read our future (Chris’s life was set to be a medium length while mine was rather short), and I asked them if I could take a selfie with them. All parties obliged. I thanked them, handed them twenty dollars in cash, and walked with Chris to Hot Cookie. We purchased a brownie.

We walked home. He didn’t want the night to end. I did. I waited for his uber to pick him up and take him to the train station. I never came clean that those amateur psychics were my friends. I ghosted him. I wonder if he’ll think about what happened for the rest of his life. What a novel experience.