I didn't think I'd find love. But, I thought I'd put myself forward and just go with the flow and go on a date.
(See my earlier article titled Love at first sight, cliche?").
I travelled 162 miles to meet this man whose eyes had already gripped my attention and whole person had given me the butterflies and an overwhelming feeling I hadn't experienced before.
I thought we would just spend a couple of hours, sightseeing a city I hadn't been to before, which would also offer a distraction should I not feel that into my date and, we both already had excuses to get away, should we have felt the need to escape early.
The date lasted almost nine hours. Sightseeing? I don't think I paid attention to anything in the city as I was overwhelmed by the presence of my date. Even after we both agreed to look for a coffee shop to sit in, we seemed to walk around in circles as I didn't see or hear anything but my date. It took us longer than it might have otherwise done just to find a place to sit in. Was I already love-struck? 😍
After our coffee, we just wandered around, made a point of popping into at least one tourist venue, the city cathedral, but I wasn't really taking in much of the scenery.
We just walked and talked and eventually decided to sit down for dinner. The evening ran seamlessly and easily. At the time, I wasn't even wondering how the date was going, but, it was obviously going well.
When we left the restaurant after dinner, it was raining heavily so I took out my little umbrella and without even thinking about it, I put my arm around the waist of my date to bring him in under my umbrella and out of the rain.
He walked me to my car, and sat with me for a bit, neither of us wanting to say goodbye but, also fully aware that we both had quite long drives to get ourselves back to our homes.
It wasn't until months later, after we'd been seeing each other for a while, that he mentioned The Sign.
The Sign for him that perhaps I did like him a bit was me putting my arm around his waist to get him under my umbrella. Who would have thought? Looking back, the fact that we both stayed as long as we possibly could to extend that first date, was probably a very good sign. 😉😍
Photo credit: painting by Vickie Wade. Loving the painting. 😍