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Joe Alwyn is currently promoting Conversations with Friends, a miniseries based on the book of the same name. Alwyn is, to me, rather unknowable. Even though he’s been dating one of the most famous women in the world for nearly six years, we really don’t know much about him, and that’s by his design. He’s extremely private, he doesn’t talk about Taylor or their life together, and he just keeps his head down and works. It’s actually pretty admirable. I go back and forth on whether I think Joe is actually boring, or whether he consciously cultivates a blank image of himself as a “celebrity.” In any case, he spoke to WSJ. Magazine about his latest project, and WSJ. Mag asked him about those persistent engagement rumors. His answer was… interesting, I suppose.

Joe Alwyn is continuing to keep his relationship cards close to his chest. In a new interview for WSJ. Magazine’s May issue, on newsstands April 30, the Conversations with Friends star, who has been dating Taylor Swift since 2016, was asked about engagement rumors that have been swirling.

“If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins,” quipped the English actor, 31.

“I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say,” he added of whether he was set to walk down the aisle with Swift, 32.

Of his decision to be private about his personal life, Alwyn told the magazine, “We live in a culture that people expect so much to be given. So that if you’re not posting all the time about what you’re doing, how you’re spending a day or how you made a breakfast, does that make you a recluse?” he mused of social media.

The Harriet actor admitted to WSJ. that while he’d “like to feel slightly less guarded sometimes in interviews or in whatever kind of interactions,” his attitude is “just a knee-jerk response to the culture we live in. If you give it to them, it just opens the door.”

[From People]

I understand when celebrities speak as if “once you talk about your personal life one time, the floodgates are open.” I get that, I really do. But I also think… you know, you could just set boundaries? Even in the entertainment press, if Joe was like “I adore Taylor and that’s all you’re getting,” people would back off from there. But again, I understand that Joe doesn’t even want to play that game and that is his boundary. I also wonder what he’ll do if Taylor starts revealing more about their life together, or what he’ll do if she, say, wants to drop some wedding photos.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, screencaps from a Taylor Swift music video.