ADVENTURE #1
Adventure: an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.
The definition above seems as good a place as any to start the story of “Adventure one” in my year of 12 adventures.
By most people’s standards, it was unusual. I decided to travel to another country to meet a man who was traveling even farther across his country for a date. (A big leap for someone who in a week with an online dating app months earlier set her geographic range at 10 Kilometers.)
Exciting — by any standard; meeting an intelligent, attractive, funny, fit, successful person who shares some of your key passions after chatting on the phone, writing, sharing photos and texts for a month. Meeting them in one of the best cities in the world dials up the excitement level another notch.
Typically hazardous? When asked to describe the risk management scale I applied when arriving at the decision to “make it happen” my worst case scenario — greatest hazard was the risk to my heart or ego. I would travel to the destination, arrive at the agreed time and he would not be there. My plan to deal with this involved retail therapy in a great shopping city. My male friend who asked the “risk evaluation criteria question” looked at me and firmly said, “NO, him not showing up was not the greatest risk. For future reference, it was that he was a killer and you were the next victim.” (Who thinks like that? — Ok, me from now on, point taken. My eternal optimism may not be my best friend in this adventure assessment process.)
Experience and activity — well those were covered as it had already been an experience to plan and travel to rendezvous with a virtual flirty fitness friend after texting/chatting about cycling and skiing, for a month! And, should we get past drinks, we had healthy fun activities planned — we did find each other on a “love of adventure and the outdoors” app after all.
So we picked a date that aligned with his business trip and my plan to catch up with an old friend in the city (both of these manufactured btw). I bought the ticket and booked a hotel room, and he did the same. While I positioned this as the no pressure first date for drinks…he was forward thinking enough to ask if we “clicked” if I/we could plan to stay an extra night. Agreed, and bonus points to you for thinking/asking/not assuming.
In the course of planning this spontaneous adventure, I had as much fun and anticipation as I have had planning any exotic two-week vacation. A week before he reached out via text in the middle of a work day to see if by chance I wanted to move up the date a weekend and meet on a beach in another city. (Tempting, and if doable I likely would have.) I was enamored with finding someone who shared my sense of “make it happen,” “jump the fence”, be spontaneous and who had enough income for follow through.
The excitement-building-communications in the week before “date day” could only to be rivaled by a child waiting for Chrismas. Our travel day update texts, from business meetings to boarding planes, from dealing with flight delays and city traffic reached a fever pitch. A highlight included me meeting and bonding with a wealthy stranger during the long delay. We eventually moved off a business discussion, and at his considerable prompting, I shared the story of what I was doing on this trip. His romantic spirit kicked in, and he insisted on providing me with his car and driver to get me to my date on time with a promise that I would have lunch back in our home city and tell him how it all turned out. This added even more to the experience as my date expressed his jealousy that he had flown across the country, and I was in the car with another man having already found a back-up should things not go well.
I grabbed a quick drink with my gal pal at another location — covering off the legitimate reason for my trip should someone ask. I made my way to the rendezvous point — following his text about what drink to order me.
Within seconds after spotting him on the loveseat in the bar of my hotel and sitting down, you could hear the “click.” Not minutes — seconds, this was the guy with the charming American accent on the phone, true to the photos, and funny, flirty texts — intuition 100%. Winner!
From a single drink, we headed out to the cab for an impromptu dinner reservation, and the first kiss on a crowded street felt completely natural. Dinner included a perfect bottle of wine that he decisively selected with a simple direction on my preference for red; everything was easy. A fabulous evening was followed by a day that included a search and debate about the perfect cup of java, hiking to places in a park I had been one hundred times but never seen the same way, lunch in a location to remember, dinner with a warm group of friends including his bestie from childhood and drinks in a neighborhood bar you could only locate with a local. At one point when he left the table at dinner, another member of our extended group asked me how long we had been together, “you are such a great couple.” Twenty hours didn’t seem like a fair response to the eager young woman.
As far as first adventures go adventure number 1 was great — only downgraded to great from awesome by the fact that it ended on schedule. I met a person who was every bit as wonderful as I had hoped. We had a fabulous time, and I added a few “first experiences” to my list — win win win.
Awesome, was at the other end of the 1–10 scale. The if “he doesn’t show or kill me” scale. Awesome was the 10 rating if he was my soul mate and we would overcome all obstacles. Awesome was if I met the guy I would spend the next 30 plus years of my life waking up with. Someone I was crazy about, who was equally crazy about me and cycling, skiing/boarding, hiking, hitting a tennis ball, climbing, staying in bed, catching planes, spending time with friends… fill in next activity here. I didn’t contemplate this — despite how easily the picture flowed out of my brain. My realistic glass half empty guy pal had asked the question, and I needed ten points on my scale, so I am sharing.
As I write this, I realize there is a little Cinderella in this grown woman that believes in the happily every after. I acknowledge, I really hoped for the weekend that I just described but additionally to have it repeated a number of times in the months ahead. A cycling trip, a ski trip, an “I have never been to this place on my bucket list trip” and a couple of “this is what life is like” in my city trips, I wanted more. While these adventures were accruing, we would both have one eye out for the person who was in closer proximity and fit better into the jigsaw puzzles of our respective lives. I was hoping that if he found his perfect puzzle piece first that my heart would not crack, that I would be ready and OK with these massive happy experiences in the memory bank. And If I found my puzzle piece first — he would feel the same way — OK and happy that I had come into his life for a reason and a season.
So the next morning, 40 hours after that first kiss in the busy street, Starbucks in hand, at a mid-point between two mid-town hotels in the most exciting city in the world holding hands I kissed the handsome man goodbye. A lingering lovely kiss which you sort of knew but desperately hoped was not the last kiss you would ever have. We turned in different directions. I did not look back. I wanted to look back, I wanted to run back but I was true to my “eyes forward” approach to life. There was enough in my rear view mirror the last couple of years — nothing to see there.
Hours later I would get a lovely text wishing me safe travels, thanking me for the adventure and extolling some of my virtues which included “warm and charming.” Days later, with a few more virtues he would share that the distance was too great a barrier for what he wanted or needed.
I was sad. I focused on the fact that I had this unusual and exciting, experience or activity. And yes — I now know that adventures can be hazardous. It did bruise my heart — it’s still smarting. But I assure you I have a memory of a weekend that is beyond what many people will have in a lifetime. So eyes forward…adventure number two awaits.
Postscript
From our first text exchange — we knew geography could be an issue, but I, in particular, didn’t care, and I cared less and less as the days of getting to know each other went on. Realistically if you meet someone you really “click” with, you will want to spend more time with them and do normal things. If you have careers, responsibilities, and children rooting you to another corner of the world those roots can’t be pulled up easily or at all. My desire for adventure was far greater than my concern about how I might feel in the future.
Lessons learned.
1. I would do it over again. Book the ticket, catch the flight, meet the boy, have the adventure, cry the tears, hold the memory — just not to tightly.
2. When you take the next step — you can’t go back. I wonder on a lonely night if it would have been better to meet a month later because I so miss the fun of the late evening calls and texts that locked perma-grin on my face for a month. Once you meet — you can’t go back to what you were doing before you met.
3. There is freedom in not having a history. We talked about what we had in common, what was going on in our life and the world today. We were not rooted in the past — other than sharing about our kids. He will never know how important he was in this slice of my life. He had a unique role, and he played the part well.
4. There is a lightness in not talking about the future. I never asked him if he was looking seriously for a life partner, a friend with benefits, or an equal partner — I assumed — and I chose the assumption that best fit my purposes.
5. Even if you know that the person in front of you isn’t “your person,” your soul mate it doesn’t make it easier when you don’t move forward. As loudly as I heard the “click,” I knew he was not Mr. Right he was Mr. Right Now, and I knew that Mr. Right Now was just perfectly fine. I wanted Right Now to last a while.
6. And yet again — so far from where I was a year a go I know that I am looking for someone wonderful to share my life with.
