and then I met Him

I was starting to get used to casual dating and to going out and partying and seeing where the night would lead me, I started to fall in love with being single and not having any particular guy to centre my thoughts around. And then I met HIM. My carefree attitude suddenly started to care, my anxiety was creeping back in, and I was beginning to follow my old patterns of behavior that I thought I'd shaken. You know the patterns, checking your phone all the time, staring and staring at the same 5 photos, obsessing over 9 words of text and finding significance in whether something was hyphenated or not.

I'm not normally like this. I am a normal, fully functioning, human woman. But as soon as a guy gets in my head, then everything changes, and I forget how long my keys were supposed to be in the iron left on.

I had never been as attracted to 5 photos before in my life. It was his smile, and his hair and his tattoos and his skiny body with lean muscle mass that I just wanted to run my fingers down.. yeah but it was mainly his smile. He just looked so happy and friendly, and his bio seemed super lovely and he was a nerd!! My favourite kind of person (when it is teamed with appropriate social skills that is). This was by far the best thing tinder had ever given me.

We chatted for a bit, and I was trying insanely hard to seem normal and cavalier about all things whilst also being devilishly witty and ever so slightly flirtatious. It was exhausting but I managed to pull it off as he wanted to meet me!! This never happens to me. Because every single guy thus far in my life, I have settled for, deciding to not be shallow or trying to be a good person and learning to love them despite the several personality traits or physical characteristics I'm not fond of (even my first love was "learnt" in this way). Either that or I have genuinely liked someone and they have not reciprocated in the slightest.

This was the very first time that someone whom I had a crush on, RECIPROCATED! The church bells rang loud, and the birds were singing, and there was sunshine and rainbows on every old timey street corner shop with children playing outside and fucking candy and gumdrops and smiles everywhere. It was a good day, but this excitement of mine was slightly stunted by his.. lack of communication skills, shall we call them?

We talked of doing something Saturday night, what? saturday? OK!! shave's legs, hair treatment, choose outfit, put sally hanson on, file and paint nails, all whist singing songs from the 1950's (the happiest era for music). Not even the minor hiccup of him not replying to my 'hey still keen for tonight message' would bring my mood down, except for at 8pm when it brought me down massively. I hid my deep disappointment by going out dancing with my sister, but my nutbush just didn't have the same heart in it. He apologised later and I discovered he had the seemingly legitimate reason of no internet access but what about tomorrow instead?
What? Sunday? OK!! I'm meeting friends at the beach, but you can come too if you'd like! Reshave legs, nails still look amazing, pick most flattering bathers, make sure to not eat anything that will bloat me, actually don't eat anything at all, do hair so that it will stay nice even when it gets wet, drink lots of water so my skin looks nice, pluck eyebrows, bring moisturiser to the beach in case I dry out. "Hey, you coming today?".... hours later.... nothing... "hey, my phones about to go flat, so if you do end up coming, we'll be just near the jetty for a few more hours".... Phone dies. ... and nothing.

Power up. "oh heyy! sorry, I was getting some drinks with friends after work, here's my number, maybe I'll talk to you later."

We chatted for a bit in the much more intimate medium of text messaging, and decided on Monday night plans. It was all set, except a few hours before he mentioned that he wanted to meet a friend coming back from melbourne so asked to move it back by about an hour. I was already in the city for a class, a class that I'd told him about, that one that we'd planned our meeting around, but sure that's fine, I'll just sit in the city waiting around for you. I have a book, so why would that bother me at all. It honestly didn't bother me at all at the time, none of it did, in spite of my bitter tone now, I was just so excited to meet him, and I was rather preoccupied trying to mask the fact that I had a cold, which I did successfully. I was full of joy, and excitement to finally meet the guy I had seen 5 photos of, and he was even more attractive and even more friendly in person. I was reading my book in Rundle Mall, and all of a sudden he was in front of me saying "Lauren?" in his Canadian accent. I looked up and awkwardly found my bookmark and put my things in my bag whilst at the same time hugging him hello, heart pounding so very fast and anxiety ripping at my ecstatic core from every angle I was ready to go on my first date with a man that had no faults of which I could overcome.