Standing by his car, watching me drive into the parking lot, he gave me a quick smile and a wave and then made a motion with his arms like he's pulling back an arrow on a bowstring and shooting it at me, while I walked towards him. I could feel his smile burning on me.
Dressed in jeans and a shirt with rolled up sleeves and sneakers, he looked at ease and that was a relief because even after fussing over what to wear, I wore my most comfy jeans and my when-in-doubt black top and sneakers. We mouthed a 'Hi' to each other and exchanged a few niceties. We sat ourselves down at a table with the view of the beach and didn't know how to take the conversation further. I was nervous. I had to be. This was my first date after 7 years. The flirtatious side of me had spiders building their webs on it.
For someone who loves to talk, I spoke very little and kept nodding my head at what he was saying, listening intensely about the things he liked. He liked talking about himself and for once I liked listening to a voice that wasn't mine. He spoke about his job, his life growing up without any siblings, his friends, his family, his goals, the crazy things he's done. As my peanut brain was processing all the information and hitting a CTRL+S on whatever he said, I was amazed how someone could talk so much to a complete stranger. I wondered how many dates he had been on, how many women he had shared these things with, and I wanted to ask him those questions but instead I asked him, "Why me?" That caught him off guard and his response was, "What do you mean, why you?" As we counter questioned each other, he figured I wanted to know why he had asked me out on a date and that I hadn't been on one for a long time. He understood from my inability to share details about myself that he would have to gain my trust for me to share things about myself with him. He called me "Fort Knox", since I was so guarded. We laughed about it and he told me that in due time he would give me a reason to share important details about my life with him.
We met, we spoke, we shared some fun stories of each one's lives growing up, me to the minimal and him sharing almost everything there was to talk about himself. We pondered over how long our families knew each other for and yet we had never met before that day. We wondered if things would have been different if we knew each other from before. Engrossed in conversation and cups after cups of coffee, we did not realize that hours had passed and he had not run out of conversation. Time unfortunately doesn't stand still and it was definitely time to go. Three times in one hour, that's how many times his phone rang. I know it is insulting to give your phone the time you would spend talking to someone, but he could not help it. It was his Mother, calling him to check when he would be home. I wondered why my parents had not called me yet and made a mental note to ask my Mom about it later.
As he walked me to my car, we made plans to meet again on another day and instead of overloading on caffeine or alcohol, we decided on bowling. As I got into my car, we said Bye and gave each other an awkward yet friendly
hug. That's when he said, "To answer your question, when I saw you for the first time, I knew there was something mysterious about you that I wanted to know. Today after meeting you, I want to know more." That made me burst into laughter, it was the cheesiest pick-up line I'd ever heard, but it was the first time someone used a pick-up line that got me laughing.
Driving back home, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view and I saw that I had a wide grin still plastered on my face.
