"I had a typical life in my late 20s. I was very busy with my job and socializing, and I lived in a city where I had no family ties. On the whole, I was happy, even though I no longer wanted to be alone and yearned to feel more. Just like every day of my working week, I went to the big administrative building, as noisy as it was bright, and to the place where it smelled of soup and French fries: the canteen.

She was there, between the meal trays and the wooden tables, and I thought she was very pretty and upbeat. She was friends with the person I shared my office with. It wasn't love at first sight, but I was keen to get to know her. We talked about our jobs and joked about colleagues. Our enthusiasm was reciprocal. We realized that we worked along the same corridor and that we'd never seen each other before. As a result, we often bumped into each other. And when I didn't see her, I wrote her little notes. Every time I went to a corner shop, I bought her a postcard. At the end of an evening with friends, she sent me a message that had suggestions beyond the regular "see you later." I sent her another card urging her to "obey the obvious." She didn't reply right away.

One evening, she suggested we got together and talked about the obvious. We met at Le Poulpe, a rather dark bar with tribal artwork covering the walls. It was full of tall, bearded guys covered in tattoos, sort of hipsters before their time. It wasn't a very romantic place where I'd have to give her roses and champagne. It meant I could play up the business-as-usual aspect to our drink, to continue pretending that nothing was going to happen between us, that we were still suspended in that limbo between friendship and love.

But then, after all the cards I'd sent her, we figured we'd got to stop pretending. At one point, I offered her my hand and she took it. The bar was not far from her place, and we kissed in her living room. We spent time together, discovering new things and new people. We had the same repartee, and our verbal ping-pongs lasted for hours, like the time we wasted doing nothing on the terrace.

The following summer, we wrote each other more letters. I explained that I was "very happy" with us, and she replied that she found it "very strange," because we worked in the same office. Our relationship was a secret at work, and that made for some comical situations. At Easter, we took our vacations at the same time and we came back with the same tan, except that I told the truth – that I'd just come back from Spain – while she said she was staying with her parents in Lons-le-Saunier (eastern France). I think our colleagues had figured us out.

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