You can't be in love with a Google search.

Host:
The night had a pulse — faint but restless — echoing through the streets that never quite went to sleep. The air smelled of rain and electric light, of screens glowing in apartment windows, each one a tiny portal into someone else’s loneliness.

Inside a dim coffeehouse, the kind that still pretended to belong to the analog world, a single lamp cast a cone of gold over two faces. Jack, sharp-featured and weary, scrolled absently through his phone, the blue light painting his skin like a digital confession. Across from him, Jeeny sipped her tea, eyes patient, expression unreadable — the look of someone who had learned that silence was often the most articulate form of truth.

Outside, a sign flickered against the window — half-dead neon letters spelling “CONECT.” The missing N hummed faintly, as though mocking the irony.

Jack: “‘You can’t be in love with a Google search,’” he read aloud, smirking. “Taylor Swift said that. She must’ve written it after a bad date with reality.”

Host:
The sound of the espresso machine hissed behind the counter, like punctuation on cynicism.

Jeeny: “No,” she said quietly. “She probably wrote it after realizing people fall for the idea of someone more than the person.”

Jack: “You mean the myth instead of the mess.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “Well, myths don’t ghost you.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said softly. “They just leave you haunted.”

Host:
The rain began again — soft, deliberate, as if the sky itself wanted to eavesdrop. Jack put the phone face-down, but his fingers still hovered near it, twitching with the muscle memory of distraction.

Jack: “You ever notice how love doesn’t exist without Wi-Fi anymore? People don’t meet; they match.”

Jeeny: “That’s not love’s fault.”

Jack: “No, but it’s its funeral.”

Jeeny: “You’re confusing connection with convenience.”

Host:
She leaned back, her brown eyes steady on him, her voice calm but full of quiet fire — the kind that warms before it burns.

Jeeny: “The internet can show you faces, names, bios — even favorite songs. But it can’t show you pauses, or glances, or the way someone laughs when they’re trying not to.”

Jack: “You’re talking like a poet again.”

Jeeny: “No, I’m talking like someone who’s seen people google love instead of live it.”

Jack: “And what’s the difference?”

Jeeny: “A search gives you answers. Love gives you questions.”

Host:
He chuckled softly — the kind of laugh that tries to sound like amusement but fails under the weight of truth.

Jack: “So you’re saying we’ve forgotten how to wonder?”

Jeeny: “No, we’ve just outsourced it to algorithms.”

Jack: “That’s progress.”

Jeeny: “No, that’s surrender.”

Host:
The rain hit harder now, drumming against the glass in sync with their heartbeat of disagreement. The light from the lamp trembled slightly, as if unsure which of them to side with.

Jack: “Come on, Jeeny. What’s wrong with a little research before heartbreak? At least Google doesn’t lie about who it is.”

Jeeny: “But it also doesn’t feel.”

Jack: “Feeling’s overrated. People fall in love with how they’re seen, not who they are. At least online, you can control the version of yourself you want the world to believe in.”

Jeeny: “Control isn’t intimacy.”

Jack: “No, but it’s safer.”

Jeeny: “Love isn’t supposed to be safe.”

Host:
Her voice cracked slightly on the word love — not out of fragility, but truth. The kind that costs something to say aloud.

Jack: “You ever been in love?”

Jeeny: “Yes.”

Jack: “And?”

Jeeny: “It was terrifying. Beautiful. Real. All the things that don’t fit into a search bar.”

Jack: “And how did it end?”

Jeeny: “It didn’t. It just changed.”

Host:
He looked at her — confusion flickering behind cynicism. The rain outside slowed again, as if the weather itself was exhaling.

Jack: “You talk like love’s a religion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. We just forgot how to worship without Wi-Fi.”

Jack: “So what — you’re saying we should all go off-grid and write letters again?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying maybe we should stop mistaking information for intimacy.”

Jack: “And how exactly do we do that?”

Jeeny: “By looking up less and looking at each other more.”

Host:
She reached across the table, resting her hand lightly near his. The lamp light caught the faint shimmer of moisture on the rim of her cup, the reflection splitting across the tabletop like a fractured halo.

Jack: “You really believe in all that — soul over signal?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because I’ve seen the way people look when they’re truly seen. No filter, no followers — just presence. It’s rare now. Sacred.”

Jack: “Sacred?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because it disappears the moment you take your eyes off it.”

Host:
He stared at her then — really stared — as if trying to find the offline version of truth hidden somewhere behind her words. The light flickered again, and for the briefest second, her face seemed to exist outside of time — warm, alive, unsearchable.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Swift meant,” he said quietly. “You can’t be in love with a Google search because you can’t love something that doesn’t look back.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “But people keep trying anyway.”

Jeeny: “Because loneliness has better marketing than love.”

Host:
The neon sign outside buzzed once, then went completely dark. The room dimmed. The rain had stopped, but the streets were still wet, shimmering under the passing headlights — like a reflection of something half-real, half-remembered.

Jack: “You think we’ll ever get back to real?”

Jeeny: “Only if we stop treating connection like data.”

Jack: “So what’s the first step?”

Jeeny: “Put the phone down.”

Host:
He hesitated. Then he did. The screen went black, and with it, the soft hum of distraction died. The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was full, like the first breath after drowning.

Jeeny smiled. Jack smiled back — tentative, almost shy.

Jeeny: “See? You can’t search for that.”

Jack: “No,” he said softly. “You can only feel it.”

Host:
The camera would pull back now — the glow of the café fading behind the curtain of night, the two figures framed by the ghost of neon and the hum of the world still spinning, still searching.

And as the scene dissolved, Swift’s words lingered in the air — not cynical, not romantic, but true in the only way that matters:

You can’t be in love with a Google search — because love isn’t found.
It’s met. In the fragile silence between one heartbeat and another.