so I did not get into a conversation with church guy and his sister at apple picking, but in what was clearly God demonstrating both His scene direction and his sense of humor once more, I do still have a story from today xDDD
exposition: a bunch of us are on the church bus riding up to the orchard. one of our goals, besides having fun, is to pick up apple orders from seniors at our church. church guy (whom I will abbreviate to C for this post) is the bus driver.
one of the two group leaders with us says that picking up the orders will actually happen at a different, less touristy orchard a little ways away, while most of the group is enjoying the touristy one. he asks for volunteers to go with him, his young son, and C (as driver). purely because C is involved, I raise my hand.
we go. we pick up the apples. I end up being fairly extraneous as the two men do all the lifting from trolley to the back of the bus. not sure why volunteers were asked for. (but it was a Christian-run family business and I bought some caramel pecan apple butter that sounds amazing so. great time.) on the way both to and from the little orchard our seating arrangement is so:
🛞
👶🧔♂️[aisle] _ _
_ _ [aisle] 👩_
so the leader was taking turns talking to C at the wheel and then to me. he asks where I live, what I do for work, if I see myself staying here/at that job for the long term, all the basic talk you might expect as we don't interact a ton. And then, the final question he asks C on the way back is about his dating life. Which, C gracefully takes the "too personal" out the leader offers, no biggy. So the leader then spends the next ten minutes or so talking about his own dating life before he finally met his wife and got married (she was about my age at that time, sounds like), avowing the importance of guys getting out there and at least giving it a try, "God can't move a parked car" etc., till we were just about back at the touristy orchard 😂😂😂
then we all went up to an observation tower and took in some nice scenery and he and I exchanged maybe one line of joking conversation and all went our separate ways for the next little while till it was time to load up everyone and head back to church.
and when leaving the bus for the final time, i thanked C by name, and he responded, so I knew I'd been audible enough.
postscript: dancing tonight was so much more physically exhausting but a whole lot smoother despite being mostly new dances, i'm so happy and so sweaty and so grateful for the extra hour of sleep coming up, I may not even stay up.
