SHE WAS A REDHEAD who walked into the restaurant in a nervous flurry and, abruptly, stopped in her tracks. While catching her breath and running her fingers through her shoulder-length hair, she scanned the dim, candle-lit room laid out before her with wide, expectant brown eyes. She was a few minutes late, she knew, and her gaze moved quickly from table to table as if she sought her greatest love and time was running short for one more chance to see him before he vanished forever from her life.
The young man at the far table knew instantly she was the woman he had come to meet. He knew she would be attractive, but he was surprised all the same. She was stunning, and he felt a sudden pull at his heart as he watched her. The pull went far beyond her beauty, though—there was something magnetic about her presence, a power in her aura he had not known could exist in someone—and he wanted to be next to her, to be a part of her life at once.
“I am here for you and always will be,” he wanted to shout across the room to her.
She needed to be rescued from standing there all alone, he thought to himself, but he waited a moment to watch her before he would speak to her and before their long lives together would begin. He enjoyed her lovely face and dark eyes as she looked hopelessly for him somewhere among the romantic tables.
Then the anticipation was too much. The young man stood and lifted his hand and motioned to her. She acknowledged his gesture and he pulled out a chair for her at the table as she came his way. He smiled and could see that her lips were full and red and that a field of freckles traversed her nose from cheek to ivory cheek. She was beautiful and vibrant and feminine and alive. If he didn’t fall in love with her in that instant, surely the journey would not be long.
She arrived at the table and stood before him and said his name, questioningly. With a smile he answered, “Yes, it’s me.” He remained standing behind the chair he had pulled out for her, and he nodded toward the waiting seat.
She hesitated. “You look nothing like your picture,” she said. “I can’t do this.” In a second flurry of hair and clothing and clinking jewelry she turned and stormed away, her waves of red hair flying.
The young man was dumbfounded. He wanted to call after her, “Yes, I had a haircut today,” or “I put on a new shirt,” or “I’ll shave for you,” or some such thing to save the occasion, something to assure her he was worth knowing and that her time would not be wasted. But she was already gone, having disappeared through the restaurant’s doorway and out into the starlit night.
He gently slid the empty chair back to the table while staring at the spot where she had unexpectedly disappeared. His love affair with her was now over—he could see it plainly—she was lost to him and the night forever, and he shook his head.
But he did not shake his head in disappointment. Rather, it was in disgust at himself because he had let his thoughts get far ahead of where they should’ve been. He shouldn’t have projected so much into another’s nature. Next time he would know better.
Sitting down at the table, the young man pulled out his phone as he took a sip of the drink he’d earlier ordered. He had lost one beauty for the night, but there was another beauty he wanted to check in on.
At the same moment, an attractive young couple at the next table was having a quiet, intimate conversation. They spoke softly between themselves—living in their own special world—where the man was heard to whisper to his date as they held hands across the table: “I hodl Bitcoin, will you hodl me?”
Our young man sitting alone smiled to himself at hearing such a question. It was a question he would also like to ask somebody, someday.
As he thought about the evening, he brought up the price of Bitcoin on his screen. He hodled Bitcoin, too, and he had done so for a long time. There was comfort for him in checking the price, something he did a lot, a passion he indulged, and all at once he realized Bitcoin was the one thing, the one beauty, always there for him—a little volatile, yes, but never fickle.
He calmly took another sip of his drink, enjoying the evening, grinning to himself. The girl was gone, which was fine. She wasn’t the right one. But the price of Bitcoin was up—and so was the world.