There she was.
She was standing by the sliding glass door to the balcony which overlooked the ocean.
I immediately dropped my bags and as I did, I locked eyes with her, embraced her, and I knew I was head over heels in love.
We talked for a few months before we finally had the chance to see each other in person. I used that time to learn everything I could about her. It was a slow process, sometimes a bit frustrating, yet exciting because every time I put my phone down I wanted to know more.
Every day we talked, revealing more and more of ourselves to each other. At first it was the simple things such as what we enjoy doing, our hobbies, our passions, our likes, dislikes and many more ice-breaker conversations that introduced more and more of who we are to each other.
Eventually we grew.
We grew to discover that many of our hobbies and passions we shared. This led to deeper, more intimate conversations about life, love, happiness and our hopes to be together. We wanted to create a life together.
No one is perfect, but I'll never forget and always appreciate the honest nature of some of those early conversations. We talked about the skeletons in our closet. We all have them, but can we accept them from someone we might potentially love? Ours were buried deep within but were mutually accepted.
After about a month, we knew everything about each other. We had never seen each other, but we knew each other so well we could begin to finish the sentence of the other. We counted down minutes before we had time to talk again, and used the in-between time to text each other little fun things to show how our feelings were beginning to blossom; all of this without ever having seen the other in person.
It was now time to meet in person. It was time to see if the mutual feelings of adornment and adoration that developed from all the conversations, picture sharing, texting and face-time chats would add up to what we hoped it would be.
I wanted it to be perfect.
Finally the day arrived. Butterflies swarmed my stomach all day, I had to get through work before I could go see her.
The plane touched down near her home town and all that remained was a drive to the hotel where she was waiting.
There she was. It was as if time stopped.
As much as we spoke in the time leading up to this moment, I could not find the words. Perhaps I wanted them to be perfect words, or perhaps I was nervous, but nothing came out of my mouth.
She immediately rushed over to me from the balcony as I dropped my bags and embraced me, after which, she kissed me—a kiss long overdue, but so powerful that it swept me off my feet.
It was love at first sight.
Every minute of every day since has been history.
I've never been a believer of love at first sight. I've heard rumors of its existence and if someone would have asked me three months ago I would argue in today's day and age it is impossible.
Online dating makes it easy to make ourselves out to be more than we really are. We can alter our pictures or put pictures up of how we used to look to mislead potential partners.
We can also mislead by claiming certain laurels or pretending to be someone we are not. The mission for many with online dating is to get a potential partner to pass the eye test, and some of us will do whatever it takes and cheat a bit to pass.
Beyond online dating, some of us need to really experience a person and spend a lot of time with them before we know or feel one way or the other if it is love, lust, or a doomed connection in our heart.
I know that is how I have always been the first 33 years of my life.
It's the safe way to play when searching for love.
It's perhaps the most commonly practiced way to search for love.
For my love and I, we never had this problem. We met by fate, as we used to be neighbors when we were very little. The only memories we had of each other were our names because we were too young to remember anything else.
