I thought it was going to be Zendaya. The co-star rumoured to be dating Zac Efron during The Greatest Showman press tour is not Zendaya but I was sure it was going to be. She plays his love interest in the movie and I would have bet that we’d all take a break from obsessing over Zendalland to speculate about Zefraya (I regretted making up this portmanteau halfway through typing it) by now. I was wrong. Thanks to a few flirty Instagram posts, the rumours have started about Zac Efron and Rebecca Ferguson. 

If I knew that Rebecca Ferguson was in this movie at some point, I forgot. You probably remember Rebecca from her badass role in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation or from the rumours she was the next young actress on Tom Cruise’s audition list. Those were just rumours and since then, Ferguson has kept her love life super private (if this is her official Instagram account, it looks like she may have been dating someone last year). I buy that Zac Efron would be into her. I don’t buy that she’d be into his public displays of affection.

It’s 2017. Social media flirting is now a legitimate way of meeting someone. I get that. The only clues to the romance in question are two posts by Zac Efron. If anyone is doing the flirting here, it’s Zefron. So, let’s break down his technique. It started with this Instagram post: 

 

A post shared by Zac Efron (@zacefron) on

When I first saw this post, I didn’t read it as a declaration of love. I read it as a dumb caption made up by a corny dude who wanted to post a pic of himself with a beautiful woman on his arm looking at him adoringly but also wanted to seem humble. I also think Efron only posts pictures where he looks tall-ish. To me, the motivation here was vanity, not chivalry. This was posted about two weeks ago. Then yesterday, Zac followed it up with another post about Rebecca – this time on Twitter. 

Now he’s the one looking at her adoringly. Get it? Is this working for you? I’m trying really hard to keep down the muffin I just had for breakfast. It’s not working on me. Buzzfeed is hung up on the heart eyes emoji. Is the bar so low for men that a heart eyes emoji constitutes romance? I haven’t been single in 6 years. Instagram was barely a thing when I started dating my partner. If I’m ever single again, I would hope the men in these streets would come with a lot more than emojis and subtle hints on social media. IF Zac is trying to flirt, I’m a bit embarrassed for him. He pulled similar moves with his Baywatch co-star Alexandra Daddario (Exhibits A and B). Either he’s brilliant at drumming up press for his films by fake-dating his costars or he’s just a shameless social media flirt. 

Why doesn’t he just slide into their DMs like every other millennial dude? 

Attached: Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Zac Efron, and The Greatest Showman cast at an event on December 9, 2017, in NYC.