Dating a YouTuber?!

Chapter 11: Reunited

I sat down at my mac to write a long blog post on my experience over the weekend. Nate had been right that it had turned out far from boring and I was thankful for that. I didn't miss him as much as I thought I might have and that showed me I was still a young and capable woman. The tale of tracking down Kristina and the meet and everything had made such a profound impact that I needed to write about it.

Hello internet-people. This is not mainly a photography post, so if you only came here for that I would advise you find another of my post at the side. I have a story to tell, it's cringe-worthy and awkward but also inspiring – I hope.

I was encouraged to ring an old friend of mine that I hadn't seen in 8 years. We were best friends growing up but after she moved schools, I never saw her again, until yesterday.

I rang her old phone number to the phone she had just received as an 11 year old and to my amazement I got through to her. Talking on the phone has never been a forte of mine and after stumbling to construct understandable sentences, I finally managed to introduce myself. I had feared that she wouldn't remember me but she sounded very happy when I told her my name. She had no problem talking on the phone and ranted on about old stories. Turns out she lived in Reading now and we set a time to meet the following day and I can hardly remember that last time I was so nervous going to met someone if you discount my new boyfriend.

At first when we met it was awkward and we started going in for a hug/handshake and it just turned out really weird. Sitting in a café, total silence remained after we had ordered our beverages. We talked delightedly about the old times but when we turned to the more present day, we struggled to find topics of conversation. Then I noticed the engagement ring on her finger and soon we found loads to talk about. Who thought you could talk about boys for so long? Slowly but surely, the conversation got going again and we were willing to open up to each other and share personal stuff. It was really nice.

The point of this story, other than showing the two photos of the cosy London café, was to encourage others to contact old friends. It might be scary and awkward at first, but if you were really good friends in the past then you can always reminisce of the past experiences. Then if you find that you have nothing in common now, that's alright. However I'm glad that my meeting with my old friends turned out so well.

Being satisfied with my post, I uploaded it and as promised send Kristina a text. She had been really excited about being featured in a blog post. We had really got to talking and Kristina was just as bubbly and kind as I remembered her. She was engaged to Peter and her whole face lit up when she talked about him. I thought twenty might be a bit early to be engaged but held my tongue. I didn't know him and Kristina seemed really happy about it, so who was I to judge? She was also studying to be a nurse and attended school in here in London.

A reply came from her instantly.

*I love it. So cute! But why no pictures of us?*

Though, we had gone into deep conversations, I hadn't quite explained my dislike for putting my face online. It hadn't anything to do with the fact that I thought I looked ugly, for most parts I did not. I just didn't like the way people displayed themselves on the internet, hence my great dislike of the selfie. Shameless self-promotion was not my thing.

Nate had a tendency to do it, but it was part of his job to promote himself. Although I really liked him and cared for him, I was still avoiding thinking the L-word too much, didn't mean that I had to like every part about him.

Since we had started dating I had been even more frantic about photos online since some of his subscribers already was convinced that he 'was dating the photography-girl #PureSimplePhotos'. I didn't want them to know my face and be able to stop me out in public. It wasn't even confirmed that Nate had gotten a girlfriend but still someone was commenting mean stuff because they thought he did.