I’m at a coffee shop prepping my cup of coffee and add 3 raw sugars. A woman next to me says with a smile, “Take some coffee with your sugar?” I politely chuckle. She then makes, what I can only imagine, is her “bedroom eyes” and leans slightly in my direction.
She’s got this sleek bob haircut, red nail polish, and smells like some expensive citrusy perfume. It’s 9:45 on a Tuesday morning, and I’m in cargo shorts and a faded band tee, working remote and trying to recover from a messy breakup. I smile, mostly out of habit.
I’m not looking for anything. But she keeps talking. Asks what I do.
I tell her I do freelance IT—”a glorified laptop fixer,” I joke. She laughs too hard, hand on my arm like we’re old friends. She introduces herself as Reema.
Says she’s in “branding,” and she loves meeting “real people who aren’t trying to sell something every second.”
That line sticks with me later. We end up sitting at the same table. She pulls out her laptop too—MacBook, rose gold, stickers of niche coffee brands and some French phrase I can’t read.
I mostly work, but we banter off and on. She tells me she used to live in Tokyo. I tell her I’ve never left the country.
By noon, she’s inviting me to a low-key networking mixer happening that Thursday night. “It’s casual,” she says, “more fun than it sounds. Free drinks, interesting people, some light pitching.
You should come.”
I almost say no. But I’ve been in a slump—work slow, friends busy, and my ex recently got engaged (I found out via Instagram story, which was a classy touch). So I say sure.
The event is at a rooftop bar downtown. When I show up, I spot Reema right away. She’s in a silk green dress, nursing a martini.
I feel underdressed again, but she greets me like I’m a VIP. Introduces me to people—some founders, a venture capitalist, a woman with a buzzcut who calls herself a “professional futurist.”
It’s all a little surreal, but not bad. The drinks are strong and free, the crowd buzzes with expensive colognes and practiced smiles.
A guy named Thilo tells me I’ve got a “grounded energy.” A woman named Maris asks if I’ve ever considered consulting for wellness startups. I’m still not sure what’s happening, but I roll with it. By the end of the night, Reema pulls me aside.
“I have a proposition,” she says. That gets my guard up. But she’s smiling like she’s about to share a secret.
“You’ve got the vibe of someone people want to trust. I’m launching something that needs a front-facing figure. Think ambassador, not influencer.”
I blink.
“You mean… like a spokesperson?”
“More like a partner,” she says. “But we can talk details later. Just think about it.”
I don’t sleep well that night.
Something feels off, but I can’t put my finger on it. She’s charming, but there’s a script underneath it all. Still, I can’t deny I liked being seen, feeling… important.
We meet again two days later. She gives me the whole pitch. She’s launching a new line of lifestyle supplements—“sourced naturally, branded luxuriously.” She wants to build an image that’s “authentic but aspirational.” She says I’m the kind of guy people root for.
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