2009 Me: So I have no heart icon, I can't change the dialogue at all. Literally I can do is change the paraphrase, and I have to change it so nobody has any doubt about what this line indicates.

2009 Me: Nailed it.

Did 2009 Me think this was a good paraphrase? WOW NO!

Was it the best 2009 Me could come up with to be 100% clear, with no other changes available and paraphrases limited to 30 characters?

APPARENTLY YES!

Every time I see this play on Twitch, the player makes fun of the paraphrase. "Subtle, Shepard!" And they are totally right! I wish we'd caught this earlier, so I could've changed the lines or done SOMETHING less clunky than this.

But this is what last-minute fixes look like.

Again, no great moral here, except that I'm glad we have better tools now -- icons to indicate you're flirting, hover text to make it clear that you're entering a relationship, that kind of thing.

And also that changing context by only changing paraphrases is real clunky.

PS: @MitchyD asked a great question: Using only 2009 Tech, what would 2020 Patrick do now to do it better?

"You matter to me, Thane." < 30 characters, about as clear, and much cleaner as a topic transition. (To be fair, 2009 me erred on clarity because it was filed as a bug.)