A Second (Unexpected) Dinner With The Young Man…

 Just to refresh, bring you up to speed, it was the  Young Man’s last week in the country.  Since his leaving party, we went from civil and polite exchanges to dinner and bonding.  After dinner on Monday, I assumed that would be the last time I would see him before he left the country so I had pretty much said all my good byes.

We whatsapp a bit on Tuesday and in the evening we talk for ages into the early hours.  Naturally we discussed dinner the day before, him saying he loved me, what he enjoyed about the date and just general chit chat about life, what we want out of marriage, if he wasn’t going away he would have started a relationship/courtship with me and be married within four to six months.  The conversation ends when he says he is so tired he is experiencing chest pains. lol

We whatsapp on Wednesday (last full day in the country) morning on my way to work.  Although he has a busy day, he says he would love to see me and will try to but he has yet ANOTHER leaving party to attend.  Seriously, Mr Popular or what?

Initially when we made loose plans in the morning, I was blasé about it all but I remember being at work in the afternoon and suddenly feeling this sense of loss and needing to be close to him one last time.  I needed to see him.  The feeling, desire, just came on me and I was thinking please let us see each other tonight.  I started hoping and on the way home I tried to calm myself so I would not be too crushed if we did not see each other.  I still hoped though.

I got home, prayed, which helped and then had some dinner as I hadn’t heard from him.  Half way through eating I whatsapp him “?”.   He whatsapp back with “hi, how are you, how was your day etc.”  I’m thinking forget that, let me know soon as whether we are meeting up…but please let us meet up.

I manage to contain myself however and whatsapp back the usual pleasantries day was ok, how was  yours etc.  Are we still meeting up?  He text back that he was already in town.   That was a surprise, I thought the leaving party would be near where he lived which is definitely not close to town.  15 mins later, he whatsapp “where are you, I am leaving now”.

At that precise moment I was doing the washing up in my pyjamas, but I feel a squeal of excitement that we are going to meet up.  “Errr at home, where shall I meet you” I whatsapp.  “Ok, maybe we meet where we met last time” he texts.  Yay!!!  By the way he is referring to Bills restaurant.  Do try to keep up.  Lol.

So I literally finish washing up, wash my face, brush and floss my teeth to freshen up and start getting ready.  The dress outfit I thought was cute an hour ago I now think makes my upper arms look fat.  Change. Spray some perfume, do my hair, almost out the door and I change my dress again!  Grrrrrr.

I leave the house at about 8:30pm and I am the restaurant within 10 minutes.  Role reversal, this time he has been waiting for me.  He has a nice table for two near a window, hidden away in the corner.  Perfect.  I walk over and he stands up and we hug and say hi.  No kiss on the cheek this time.  I sit down but notice that my chair is opposite him and I feel uncomfortable , formal and far away from him.  “I don’t like this, I like proximity” I say as I move my chair to sit to his right.  I felt more comfortable immediately.  He seemed tired, was tired and a little more quiet than yesterday.

We talk about his day, the leaving party – he did contemplate inviting me but thought it would have been awkward for me.  I am touched that he wanted me there.  “I would still have wanted to spend time with you alone though” I say.    After a short while I notice he isn’t instinctively and immediately touching me.  “Why aren’t you touching me today”I ask him.  He laughs and plays with my right hand and we hold hands.  I am expecting him to be touchy feely like he usually is but this time the roles are reversed and he is more laid back.  What’s going on?   I do notice that my hormones and emotions are under control.  I still feel alive and uber happy to see him and spend time with him but I don’t feel that desire and chemistry that I have been feeling.  Result!

“I’m really glad you saw me tonight.  I didn’t expect that we would” I tell him.  Apparently he had every intention of seeing me. “Really?” I say.

He tells me that I should do the ordering since he did it Monday.  We go for drinks but no food because we have both eaten.  I order virgin cocktails as neither of us drink.  When they arrive, I ask him to try some of mine which he does using my straw.  Naughty naughty.  I try some of his but using MY straw.  I love how he is always willing to try something new and sort of immerse himself in things I like.  For the second round, I ordered a watermelon cocktail and it arrived with a quarter size watermelon wedge – I fed him some and then went to feed him again but would slowly pull it away from his lips every time he wanted to bite.  Then we would both laugh.

We talk about him leaving, he says its surreal, he can’t believe he is going.  Says it doesn’t seem as  if I’ll miss him, that I am happy he is going.  I say no, when people leave I let them go but if they go away and maintain contact then I stay in contact but if they don’t then I leave it as they were only supposed to be in my life for that period of time.  “I can’t stress over everyone that lives, – it would be a life half lived” I say.  “I will come back though” he says and he really believes he will.

“Perhaps, but you could come back to Canada, the states or maybe even another part of England.  Or maybe, what if when you get home, you meet someone else and when you come back you’re with someone.  Three months is a long time and where would that leave me if I was just waiting “I say.  He looks at me then he looks down at the table.  “Or what if you meet someone else” he says.  “Would you be heartbroken.  How sad would you be”  I jokingly ask.   He looks sad and continues looking down at the table.  I laugh.  “Would you really be heart broken” I ask.  “Yes” he says eventually “but ill get over it, ill have to”.  I say I’m not the sort of person to fall in and out of love, once I am all in and fully invested, that’ll be it for me.  He just looks and listens when I talk.

Because he is much more quiet than usual and I am as always full of energy, I talk and ask him questions.  We talk about a lot and I talk more about myself than I would usually do.

Above all that I just loved feeling so close to him.

We order more cocktails and keep talking, laughing, “bonding” as he puts it.  We take selfies together.  It’s funny, its playful, its nice and we each tell a story about said selfies.  My story is about the time line of things between us.  His is of how much of a distraction it was having me there for our Friday night prayers.

We muse over what could have happened had he stayed longer.  I tell him I don’t think we would have been as open and as expressive as we have been –“what’s happened over the last couple of days is like a month’s worth of stuff” I say.  He agrees and says we have been bonding the last couple of days  and it may not have been so had he stayed longer.

“Dont you mind me being bigger than you” I ask.  “Are you” he asks.  YES!  I put my hands around his arms and he does the same to me.  I point out his legs are the size of my arms.  He laughs and just shrugs.   I ask if he can pick me up to which he says he definitely can.  Yay, the important things in life.  🙂

We are the only ones left in the restaurant, he pays the bill and gentleman that he is, he holds my coat up so I can put it on.  Awwww.  When we get to the taxi rank, the goodbye is much shorter this time.  We hug, walk a bit and then hug for a bit longer.

And we say goodbye.

We whatsapp a bit when I get home and I send him our selfies.

In the morning when I wake up and check my phone he has whatsapp me, “morning dear, how was your night, feeling sleepy seriously “  He sends pics of him at the airport.

“How was my night?  You know how it was …I was with you” I text back.  He is boarding so I wish him a safe journey and text “I’ll miss you” with a heart.  “Yeah, in the queue.   Miss you too“.

And that was that.

Dinner With The Young Man…

 Ok so after the whole kneeling down together at the leaving party, I only managed to sleep for about four hours that night.  I was shattered and fell asleep at some point between 11pm and 11:30pm but I woke up suddenly just after 3am!  The memories from the party all came flooding back and I tossed and turned for a while, unable to fall into a deep sleep until of course it was time to get up.  Hate when that happens.

Monday morning was fairly normal, I went to work as usual and was able to focus to some degree but I didn’t have much of an appetite.  I asked my boss if I could work through lunch and leave an hour early which was cool.  I just wanted the day to go quickly so I could just meet up with him.  As the time was drawing closer I got that nervous excitement feeling you get when I guess you’re both nervous and excited.  I didn’t know what was going to happen, what to expect, what we would talk about…it was all up in the air.  I desperately tried not to get too excited in case for some reason it was cancelled.  It’s happened a couple of times in the past and the crushing feeling of disappointment I get is not the good life.

Got home, made a green smoothie (just so I at least had some sort of substance in my belly), showered and got dressed.  The skirt and top outfit I had mentally picked out was totally unsuitable so I decided on my black and purple colour block dress.   Another spray of perfume and I was out the door at 19:35.  I called him to find out where he was and he was already in town.  Hmmmm well that’s good, I thought.  He was doing some last minute gift shopping to take back and asked me to choose somewhere where he could meet me.

I chose Bill’s restaurant.

Not too formal and overwhelming, but not too casual.  I didn’t want somewhere too intimate and romantic, but I wanted somewhere where we could chat, food was good and was generally comfortable and relaxing.

When he arrived, I stood up to say hi.  He hugged me and I felt his arm go around my lower back, he apologised for being late and he kissed me on the cheek.  Wasn’t expecting that, but I feel the familiar flutter at the pit of my stomach.

“I really like your dress, I haven’t seen you wear this one before” he says as we sit down.  “I have, I think at the conference” I say.  “I don’t remember but you really look nice” he continues.  I start to feel embarrassed,  “Stop talking about my dress I am getting embarrassed” I say and I cross my arms across my chest in that self-conscious way.  I love attention but then I sort of don’t know how to handle too much of it.  Awkward I know.

The two seater table is tiny and both of us are tall.  I had moved his seat position from opposite me (too intimate plus I prefer him closer) to my left.  Another bonus aside from proximity is that it hides him away from my awful neck lump which I am getting more self conscious about.  He showed me some of the things he bought in town for his family and I see another leaving card and gift as I look through.  Popular, isn’t he?

Neither of us are particular hungry but we agree to share a meal.  We are so engrossed in our conversation that it takes ages for us to order.  I let him do the choosing and ordering and he goes for the Buttermilk chicken burger and sweet potato fries.  Not what I would have chosen (aren’t burgers for 5 year olds?) but, I was curious what he would choose.

But back to the conversation of which naturally I cannot remember everything.  We talked about everything – but you knew I would say that.   As we talk I notice how intently he looks at me and listens to my opinions when I am talking.  He is quite touchy feely as always, holding and touching my hands, stroking my back,….all very nice. Very nice ;-). I could feel the same old stomach flutterings as usual but way more intense.

The conversation was flowing, there was no awkwardness, he was touchy feely and I was ok with that.  At times I did notice that I was starting to touch his hands and stuff when talking, when I realised what I was doing, I would move my hand away.

I tell him how hurt I felt when he distanced himself from me and we were barely talking.   “Even if it was a no, or you no longer liked me, we could still be friends.  I thought you stopped liking me”.   He explained why – he deliberately held back and distanced himself because he had to think things through.  What would happen when he moves back home with the distance between us, did he like me for me or what he could get, was it more than just attraction and loads of  stuff.  He said he had to think things through and that’s what he did during that time.  Plus he had to focus on his post-grad studies too which was uber stressful.

Our food arrived at some point.  I cut the burger in half and divided the sweet potato fries.  He tried to feed me the sweet potato fries on his plate.  I refused to bite.  Why do guys do that to me?  Every single time they try and feed me.  Must be some sort of guy thing?

“How do you feel about me?” I ask him.

“I like you.  I really really like you. I really…” and then his voice sort of catches, he stops and  looks down at the table and he doesn’t say anything for a bit. He is getting choked up!   “Ohhh Young Man, it’s ok don’t cry” I say and I start to feel bad that he feels so sad.  I move my chair closer to him.

We stay sitting close for a while, I’m desperately trying to offer some sort of comfort to make him feel better.  Eventually he is ok but we remain close.  He holds my hand and says “how can I just leave you behind, I really like you”.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  All this time I thought you didn’t like me, I had no idea you felt this deeply” I say.  He says he would have told me, just wanted the perfect time.

The restaurant empties, they clear our plates and we order dessert just to stay a bit longer.  When the brownie and ice cream dessert arrives, we both look at it and clearly have no appetite for it.  I play with the ice cream.  I love chocolate but this must be a first where I let a brownie go without absolutely demolishing it.  He eats a bit of it and of course tries to feed me.  I shake my head and say no, and he smiles.  🙂

He asks if I feel peace about him and I say yeah I guess so.  He asks whether I would be able to handle a long distance thing and we spend sometime talking about this.  He asks in a long-winded way how I feel about him.  “I don’t know” is what I say.  “I would never have thought I was your type or vice versa, but since you’ve told me, I can’t get it out of my head.  It’s just always there and sometimes I think yes then other times I think no.  But, I’m here with you now and it bothered me when we were not talking“.

“What do you think” I ask him.

“I think you’re trying to suppress it and keep it back” he says.

I still can’t say I like him.  But I obviously do?  Maybe I don’t want to like him?  Maybe because he is just not my usual type and what I am expecting or looking for, I just don’t want to like him or him to be the one?  Who knows?!?!

We take some selfies together which was nice.

The restaurant staff are cleaning up, we are the only ones left and its more than obvious that its time to leave.  As we walk along through town we hold hands, our fingers interlocked and just chatting away.  I feel more than gentle fluttering and stirrings in my belly but I don’t care.

When we get to the taxi rank spot we stop.  Time for goodbyes.  We talk, joke, whisper, hug, break apart, hug and continue doing this for a while.  As we hugged goodbye for what seemed like the last time he says “I love you”.

“You love me?  You wait until now to tell me?” I ask.  He laughs that cute baby sounding laugh he does.  “Words are important to you aren’t they” he says.

“Yes, especially when there’s a huge difference between like and love” I laugh.

“I deeply like you, I love you” he says.  We laugh, we hug, we take more selfies.  We (eventually) say good bye.

When I get in he whatsapp me to check if I was home.  We whatsapp for a bit – nothing heavy just general chit chat about the evening and I send him our selfies.  I fell asleep after 1 am and I slept deeply, until I woke up at at 5:14 am.  Why do I keep waking up after 4 hours sleep?  The memories and feelings flooded back immediately and I tossed and turned for a bit, thinking about the evening.

I told the Young Man at dinner that whilst a situation is happening I can process it rationally and logically, its only afterwards that my feelings  about said situation will hit me.   I can process that he is going but it will be afterwards that my feelings will really hit me.  The morning  after, whilst at work it started.  I just suddenly felt a sense of loss and a desire to be close to him again.  I whatsapp him just before 9:30am saying “the reality is hitting me now…and you haven’t even left yet”.  He text me back but I don’t think he fully understood what I meant.

I Had A Good Weekend…

 So how was your weekend?  I am hoping it was pleasant for you even though it goes far too quickly.  Anyway, here’s what I got up to.

Friday was me helping out at the soup kitchen my church started about three months ago.  This is the second time I am helping out and my heart just grieves at all the unused potential in the people I see coming for food.  For some, it’s a series of hard knocks from life, for others, they are European nationals trying to get by in England.  But then there are the ones there because of addiction (old, very young and all in between) just makes me want to cry at what could have been of their lives.  I am not being patronising or perching on some high horse.  Just sharing a bit of my reality.  A 64 year old should be surrounded with grandkids, memories and sharing his experiences and family pictures with me.  Not telling me that he wants to stop shooting heroin.  One thing I noticed when talking to some of them is that no body ever turns down the offer to be prayed for – “come on then” they say when I ask if I can pray for them.  After the soup kitchen I went home for dinner (so difficult to eat after the soup kitchen) and then onto night prayers at the church.

Saturday I was at home sleeping until prayers in the evening – we were at day 49 of our 90 days of praying as a church.

Sunday was really good.  After church, I asked my friend Torey if he wanted to check out the new Iphone 6/6 plus in town.  He did and off to town we went.  It was also Torey’s last weekend before he moves back to the outskirts of London.  I figured even before I asked him that we would go to town together, wander around a little bit chatting, have dinner, chat some more before going our separate ways.  As a consequence, I wrote of my entire afternoon before I even asked him.  Well call me correct because exactly as I thought, so it happened.  We wondered in to the Apple store, I was amazed at the sheer size of the Iphone 6 plus, Torey was repulsed and referred to it as a vulgar object.  My excitement heightened and I could just about contain myself.  I was almost squealing with delight at the thought of getting my hands on one of them.

Torey is a laid-back, appropriate old-fashioned sort of gentleman.  The type of gentleman that if I were to describe him, you would assume I am divulging a character from my yet to be written novel but alas he is very real.  Being the sort of person he is, I thought it would take hours before he suggested we grab something to eat but alas, within ten minutes of being in the Apple store I heard “I am STARVING, so hungry I am about to collapse“.   After I finished my squealing over the Iphone 6 plus, we went in search of a restaurant.

Being the gentleman that he is, he offered to pay.  Being the lady I am, I gladly accepted..and chose the restaurant.  A delightful little french brassiere and after delicately checking that I was not limited to the specials menu, we got down to business.   I’ll post pics of what we ordered below.

We were in the restaurant for HOURS.  Probably from around 2/2:30 pm to about 6:30pm.  Eating, talking, laughing and more talking.  I guess it was nice to just be able to do something different to my usual Sunday routine, not to have worry about ordering to a budget and just talking to someone.  I mean really talking to them.  Him trusting me with his thoughts, his past and his experiences and me opening up moreso than I would usually do.  To write everything that came up would take hours and hours that I do not have because as usual…I am writing this at a time when I ought to be heading to bed.

After leaving the restaurant, we went to a delightful organic restaurant/cafe for more teas, sweet potato fries and an eton mess. Possibly the sweetest dessert I have ever had but having a sweet tooth like I do – an extremely sweet dessert is never a mistake with me.  We continued talking and laughing and sharing until it was late.  I got home sometime before 11 pm.

I truly think Torey is an exceptional young man – the sort of young man that is going to leave an everlasting and positive imprint in the future.  The sort of young man that loves challenges…and challenging headstrong women ;-).  I know this because he started the soup kitchen.  If that is any indication of the sort of potential within him, then yes, my expectations of what he could accomplish (through Christ) are colossal.  And I have the full benefit of having known such a noteworthy character in the making.

It’s the good life.

Check out the food pics…

I had the chicken liver and toasted brioche

Torey had the calamari

We both had the duck as our mains

We both had the chocolate fondant for dessert

At Bills Restaurant

We both shared the sweet potato fries which were ok.  A bit greasy.

We both had the Eton Mess….YUMMY!