D and I met very much by accident. At the time, we kidded ourselves and romanticised the whole thing. “It was meant to be”, “We were meant to meet each other” “It was fate”. It felt magical and accidental.
In reality, it was just coincidence. It’s just how events happened to unfold that night. Like any other meeting of any other person in my life.
I was never going to go out on that final night in San Fran. I was very much dragged out by my hostel pals, but hadn’t wanted to leave. I wanted to stay in and pack, ready to fly home the next day.
I ended up in a Beer Olympics bar. Oh, America. Organised drinking games. D was put on my team. We began talking. I was very drunk. It was my last night in America and I did not give a fuck what happened that night. He was cute and seemed familiar. He was true and honest. Raw. I liked that. Better the devil you know.
I’d decided I was going to sleep with him. In my head, I worked out “I’ll never see him again. It doesn’t matter”. Did I mention I was very drunk?
This particular section of the story doesn’t require all that much explaining. Looking back now, after everything that has happened, it’s probably the nicest, easiest to understand and most normal part of our encounter.
He kissed me in the second bar we went in to. I asked him if he’d like to leave with me. He called us a cab and we left. We got back to my hostel. We had sex. The sex was good. But what drunk sex isn’t? In my mind, I was already over it though. I knew I was leaving. I knew I’d never see this guy again. He’s American. He’s from America. It was a pretty perfect situation to be honest - I didn’t need to care, because there was no possibility of any other outcome. Clean cut. Simple. Perfect end to a perfect trip.
However. We lay together in my bottom bunk. And we started talking. NOT part of the plan. I felt a connection. I felt part of myself being emitted out of him back at me as we spoke. I’d never felt anything like it with someone before. I felt total equality. It felt like I’d always known him. I had to stop myself from saying “where have you been?”, because of the overwhelming sense that we’d met before. We’d been friends before, and now we’d reconnected in.. well.. whatever this was. Lovers? Drinkers? Who knows.
We laughed some more. He eventually left. I was falling asleep, but I remember him asking persistently for confirmation of the spelling of my surname. At the time, it meant nothing to me. And I sleepily told him my full name. You guessed it - I woke up to a friend request from him on Facebook.
I thought it was polite, but a little unnecessary. We surely don’t have anything to speak about? And really, the cynical part of my thought “What’s the point?”, when there’s no chance we could stay friends, and certainly for anything more to happen, I just didn’t get it. But I accepted the friend request, so as not to be a dick. Oh, if only I’d known.
We started talking straight away. He said how great it had been to meet me. He was fascinated the fact I was British, living in Britain, Britain in general, etc etc etc. And honestly? I was fascinated by him. Originally from Texas. Living in Missouri. I wanted to know all about small town America, and more importantly all about him. This person I felt sure I was destined to know.
It continued after I’d returned home. I thought it was a little odd. A guy I’d had a one night stand with in San Francisco was attempting to pursue me. No.
I tried to palm him off politely a few times. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him, but the situation seemed like a cul-de-sac. There is nowhere this can go. We realised, through talking further, and eventually talking on the phone, that we liked each other an incredible amount. We connected on so many levels. We had a frightening amount in common. It was soon apparent that we connected on a romantic level, and we started speaking every day, throughout the day. He would wake up in the middle of the night, his time, to tell me to have a good day at work. I’d stay up late on the phone to him. We talked about everything. We shared our hearts openly and honestly. He made me feel things I’d never felt before. I can’t really put them into words, even now. I suppose it was just the sensation of meeting the person you’re supposed to spend your life with. Or so I thought at the time. But it felt so incredibly intense, and so unmistakably like we were meant to be, I didn’t know where to go with it.
He seemed to have a lot going on in his life, and one night, I bluntly said it was probably best that we stopped whatever this was that we were doing, because of his personal circumstances, along with the distance, was surely only a recipe for disaster. And honestly? I didn’t want to meet anyone. I’d found mental freedom finally, and I didn’t want to give it up. He had other plans.
He literally did not let me exit his life. He said that he already couldn’t imagine his life without me in it. Ever. That he had to get to know me. That he believed we were equals, and that we’d been brought together for a reason.
We continued to speak every day. On the phone. On Skype. Texting. We couldn’t get enough of each other, and it felt safe to entertain that. We found things in one another that we’d searched long and hard for in others, but never managed to find. It was as if we’d finally met, after waiting all these years, knowing the other was waiting, somewhere.
I could feel myself falling in love with him. Hard and fast. I could feel that he felt the same. I didn’t want this to happen. I voiced my concerns. He soothed them every time. Made out that I didn’t need to worry about anything at all.
He asked me more than once to be his. For us to be together. I declined each time. I said if it was ever to happen we’d need to spend more time together. And also, hello? Distance? What the fuck? He batted away my concerns. He said we’d find a way. He wasn’t concerned with the how, he just wanted to be with me. He talked about what he wanted out of his future, and that he wanted to see if that could be with me. He even talked about the fact that he was open to moving over here, if that’s what it took. It all felt so blissfully easy, happy and magical. I got swept away, bit by bit, with his persuasion.
He knew all about my previous heartbreaks and how they’d gone down. Another topic we’d torn apart, in depth. He promised he would never hurt me like they did. He’d never just up and leave my life like they did. I was still so wary, but after much persuasion and constant reassurance, we agreed for him to book a flight and visit me for 2 weeks, in a months time.
By the time he’d booked his flights, I knew I loved him. I knew he loved me. I knew this was massive. I knew I wanted to be with him, and I knew I wanted to spend as much of my life with him as I could.
We hadn’t said the words. Neither of us wanted to say it if it wasn’t in person. But we knew it was there. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I couldn’t believe he’d been there all along, I’d just had to find him. We settled into one another’s lives so easily. Well, as easily as we could with the distance and the time difference. After all of his beautiful words and romanticisms, I could feel that my doubts were easing. My heart softening. Becoming more open. It felt safe. It felt real and true. Falling in love with him was the easiest thing in the world. He made sure of that.
It’s 10:31pm. I don’t wonder what he’s doing tonight. I don’t care any more. I used to care. I used to care with all of my being. I would have cared until the very end. Which, at one point, he said he would too. He said it without me asking. Which was the majority of a lot of the things he said to me in the beginning: never asked for.
I didn’t need him to make the promises he made. I didn’t need the overly sweet and romantic lines he fed me. I just wanted love and truth - that is, if I was going to want romantic involvement at all. He fed lines of love and pieces of his heart to me until finally I actually needed them from him. Because they’d become the norm. And they felt so out of this world to hear and receive. I remember some of the things he said now, and, in hindsight, they feel like bad champagne. The right intent, and an attempt at something brilliant. But never quite as good as the proper stuff. Some of the things we said were in person. Lying in the dark in my bedroom at my parents house, listening to one another breathing, thankful to be able to hear it. Some were over the phone before and after his visit. Feeling hollow because we were so far apart, wishing the other was there.
“I’ve never been able to picture myself marrying someone so clearly as I do with you.”
“I want someone to love until the very end.”
“When I look into your eyes, it’s like seeing home.”
Cynical me from a few months back would have vomited. The me that he was training me to be, lapped it up, blushed, couldn’t believe such a guy existed.
What was that wise old saying in one of my earlier posts? Oh yes; if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
