Monday, August 11, 2014

Meeting Leslie: Part 1 of 2

After nine months of treading through the confusing waters of online dating, I felt God calling me to something different. But I wasn’t exactly sure what. I cut back on the online dating, rarely checking the site and not sending out any messages over the last month or two. After so long it just became cumbersome, seemed futile, impersonal, and created frustration inside of my heart.

I decided I was going to go to a college and young adult bible study that a mega church runs here. Yes, I was considering I might meet someone there I might want to date but I also just wanted to find some friends, some people who like to have fun, who are in my same life-stage, even if they were a bit younger.

That’s when I met Leslie (not real name). Not the first week but the second week, even then I only got her name and the fact that she was going to be there the coming week. The next week I got her full name and one of her friends name and added them both on Facebook.

A lot of the underpinnings happened in those messages on Facebook. I asked her to coffee or a movie, she said sure, and then later told me she spent the weekend meeting her boyfriend’s parents. She never said she didn’t want to meet, which confused me. I still decided to pull back so I told her and one of her friends if they wanted to do something to let me know. Plans either never happened or kept falling through.

For the first few weeks at the bible study we set separately, either her or her friends couldn’t see me or she sat in the middle of her friends. Eventually she came to either invite me to sit next to her and her friends or she would come and sit next to me. It was nice. I liked her as a friend but obviously since I asked her out for coffee or a movie in the first place there was always that initial attraction. I wanted to acknowledge and respect the fact she had a boyfriend... even if inside I wanted to dismiss and ignore that because of my own desires and feelings.

Well, then I got into a car accident. Those who know me best know I am somewhat anxious driving, but add a car accident and the anxiety of having a rental I can’t get into an accident, and it’s pretty terrible, at least the first few days. Because of this and because I knew she would be driving close to my apartment on the way to the bible study, I asked her for a ride. First, this would help me with my anxiety and secondly, it would give me extra time to talk with her, friends or no friends riding along.

No friends ended up coming, when she texted me that fact I just called them losers and laughed but inside I was obviously excited. It would just be the two of us, not that I would try anything, but I would get to know her a bit more. It was during that ride she brought up her boyfriend, letting me know they were courting not dating. I still do not know why she decided to tell me this fact, being that either way she saw him as her boyfriend so what difference would it make.

After the bible study she was dropping me off and I asked if she… (Then I corrected myself)… she and her friends want to get together to let me know. We had been talking about movies earlier and how I wanted to see “Guardians of the Galaxy”. That is when she said, "If you'd like a movie buddy to go see Guardians, let me know".

To Be Continued…
~ Single Me

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