I can't imagine dating someone famous. I try to stay away from

Host: The night was humid, heavy with the smell of rain that hadn’t yet fallen. A neon sign outside the bar flickered, casting red and blue shadows across the faces of two people seated by the window. The city hummed — cars, sirens, distant laughter. Inside, the music was slow, the kind that made you remember things you’d rather forget.

Jack leaned back, his grey eyes hidden beneath the dim glow. A half-empty glass of whiskey rested in his hand. Jeeny sat opposite, her hair loosely tied, tracing the edge of her coffee cup with a tired, absent gesture. They had been silent for a while, both lost in thought.

Jeeny: “You know what Dylan Penn said once? ‘I can’t imagine dating someone famous. I try to stay away from that as much as I can.’”

Jack: “That’s wise, if you’re famous yourself. But if you’re not… it’s just fear dressed up as modesty.”

Host: A smile, thin as a blade, crossed Jack’s face. His voice was low, measured, the kind that cuts rather than comforts.

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s not fear. It’s sanity. She’s saying she wants something real, something that isn’t filtered through headlines and spotlights.”

Jack: “And what’s real, Jeeny? These days, even reality is performed. Ordinary people document their lives like they’re in a movie. Everyone’s famous now — at least to themselves.”

Host: The rain started, tapping against the glass in uneven rhythm. Jeeny watched the droplets slide, her reflection blurring in the pane.

Jeeny: “There’s a difference, Jack. Fame isn’t the problem — illusion is. When you fall in love with someone who’s idolized, you’re not loving them. You’re loving their shadow. Their idea, not their truth.”

Jack: “Maybe. But people are ideas, Jeeny. That’s what keeps us alive. If no one ever believed in your idea, would you even exist?”

Jeeny: “You mean — would I exist if I weren’t seen?”

Jack: “Exactly. Visibility is the currency of worth now. Dylan Penn can say she avoids the famous, but she lives in that world. She breathes its light. She can’t escape it.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes narrowed, her voice steady, yet soft, like thunder heard from a distance.

Jeeny: “You think she’s a hypocrite. I think she’s honest. She’s saying — I don’t want to be consumed by what consumes me. That’s bravery, Jack.”

Jack: “Or naïveté. You can’t escape the machine you’re a part of. It’s like a soldier saying he doesn’t believe in war but still marching every day. You can’t separate fame from the person it creates.”

Host: The rain grew louder, drumming against the windows like a heartbeat. The bartender lowered the lights. The shadows lengthened across their faces, turning them into silhouettes — symbols more than people.

Jeeny: “You sound like you think fame is a kind of disease that can’t be cured.”

Jack: “Not a disease. More like gravity. It pulls everything toward it — attention, envy, desire, destruction. You can’t fight it, you can only orbit it until it burns you.”

Jeeny: “And yet people like her — or even like Marilyn Monroe — tried to escape that orbit. Marilyn once said, ‘I’m not a toy, I’m a person.’ Don’t you see the cry in that, Jack? The desire to just be human, without the performance?”

Jack: “But she also became a myth, Jeeny. Fame didn’t just kill her; it immortalized her. And that’s the paradox — to be known by everyone is to be forgotten by yourself.”

Host: The room seemed to breathe, filled with the smell of smoke and wet concrete. Outside, a taxi splashed through a puddle, the light breaking across the windowpane like a fractured star.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why people like Dylan avoid the famous. Because when two mirrors face each other, there’s no end — just infinite reflection. No truth, no touch, only echoes.”

Jack: “You’re romanticizing it. It’s not about mirrors, Jeeny. It’s about power. Fame is control, attention, currency. And everyone wants it — even those who pretend they don’t. It’s just fashionable to pretend.”

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. There are still people who want quiet, who want love that doesn’t need to be seen to be real. Haven’t you ever wanted that?”

Host: Jack paused, his fingers tightening around the glass. For the first time, his eyes lifted to meet hers, and something vulnerable flashed there — like a storm caught behind glass.

Jack: “Once. A long time ago. But quiet love dies in a loud world. People want to be witnessed, Jeeny. Even when they say they don’t.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we’ve just forgotten how to be alone. To love without an audience. That’s why what Dylan said matters. It’s not about fame, it’s about boundaries — about protecting what’s intimate from what’s hungry.”

Jack: “And you think love can survive hidden away, in the dark, unseen by the world?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because love doesn’t need to be witnessed. It needs to be felt.”

Host: The air tightened between them. The silence hung, dense, like fog. Jack looked down, tracing the rim of his glass, as if the truth were floating there, drowned in the amber.

Jack: “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I do. I think that’s what she was saying — that she wants to protect the ordinary, to preserve something unseen in a world that feeds on visibility.”

Jack: “And yet, isn’t secrecy just another form of performance? A pose against the spotlight?”

Jeeny: “Not if it’s honest. Not if it’s chosen. Some things only bloom in privacy. You wouldn’t dig up a seed every day just to check if it’s growing, would you?”

Host: Her words lingered, gentle but piercing. Jack exhaled, a slow, tired breath, the kind that carries both defeat and understanding.

Jack: “So you’re saying the world should just… look away?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes, yes. Love, art, even pain — they need shadows to breathe. When everything’s lit, nothing’s real anymore.”

Host: The rain softened, turning into a mist, the sound now a whisper against the glass. The bar had emptied, the neon sign buzzing faintly.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe fame is just a spotlight that burns what it touches. And maybe… some things are better left in the dark.”

Jeeny: “Not in the dark, Jack. Just out of the camera’s frame.”

Host: A smile — small, tired, but true — broke across Jack’s face. He nodded, and for a moment, the air between them felt lighter, human again.

Outside, the city reflected in a thin sheet of rainwater. Headlights blurred, merging into the wet asphalt like memories dissolving.

Host: And as the neon flickered one last time, their faces — once outlined by light and shadow — faded into something simple, quiet, and real.

The kind of moment that never makes the news,
but stays — long, deep, and unseen — in the heart.