Boys are weird. I didn’t have my first kiss till I was super old and I didn’t have my first boyfriend till I was even older. I like to blame it on the fact that I moved so often and no boy ever got to know “the real me,” but I know for a fact it was because I was brutally shy and awkward and didn’t know why any boy would ever want to be with me.
But, I can now confidently say that I’ve moved past the days where I was literally unable to even speak to a boy that I thought was remotely cute. Like even a simple “hello” was too difficult to muster out. In high school I would take a different route around the building so I wouldn't run into my crush because I was literally afraid of him. But, in honor of my awkward boy days I’ve decided I want to tell the story of how my boyfriend I met.
So here it goes…
In February of this past year I was broken up with. It wasn’t a bad breakup but the guy I was dating told me that he didn’t see us getting married and therefore didn’t want to date any more. At first I was confused because, one, why would anyone ever want to break up with me (kidding) and two, we were dating for like four months so why was he even thinking about marriage? To be honest, we should have been friends the whole time, but those are the kind of things you only learn in hindsight, cause it's 20/20 you know.
Anyways, I had never been broken up with before that so my confidence was definitely bumped down a few levels. In order to gain my confidence back, all my friends suggested I download Tinder just for the heck of it. Obviously, I had nothing to lose at this point so I went to the app store, downloaded that pesky app, uploaded some photos, and made my bio a Dwight Schrute quote; “How would I describe myself? Three words: hardworking, alpha male, jackhammer, merciless, insatiable,” to be exact. Looking back, that probably made me seem like a grade A weirdo to pretty much everyone but again, hindsight is 20/20.
I had a few matches here and there, a few tried and true office fans message me, but nothing crazy. Then one day, I got a message along the lines of, “I hate the office.” And I was enthralled. I responded, “I know you’re lying because if you hated it you wouldn't know my bio was an office quote.” And those were the two messages that made us fall head over heels for each other.
Hah, kidding. Super kidding.
So anyways, we messaged back and forth for a while and then decided that we wanted to meet in real life.
Which is terrifying.
First thing that I was worried about was that I was getting catfished by a freaking murderer, second fear was “what if he thinks I’m cat fishing him and I’m not, but like my pictures, what if I don’t actually look like my pictures and he thinks I'm cat fishing him because I'm 20 times uglier in real life.”
I guess I wasn’t too scared though, because we decided to meet at a bar, which was my idea, and here’s why. One, I could go with my friends. Two, it was a very public space. And three, if he was weird or creepy or anything I could just run away or hide in the bathroom and he wouldn't notice too much.
To be completely honest, I had never been more nervous to go to a bar in my entire life. I was worried I didn’t look like how I looked on Tinder, and I was worried he was going to be a murderer. Which are basically the two scariest things in a college girl’s life, not to be dramatic, but I was a panicked mess.
I remember getting to the bar earlier than we had decided because I wanted to be the first to see him and gage the whole murderer thing. And I remember seeing him. He was for sure the tallest guy there and for sure cuter than he looked on Tinder, which freaked me out even more. I felt like I was back in high school scared to death to walk into Spanish class because my perfect crush would be in there. How could I be in the presence of someone so perfectly cute, huh?????? Since I saw him, I obviously couldn’t just walk up and say hello because that’s weird and forward (not sure why I was so afraid of saying hi, but I was, back to the hindsight thing) so I waited until he texted me asking where I was, “by the DJ, obviously!! Where are you?”
“By the ping pong dispenser,” he nonchalantly responded. I played dumb, didn’t respond and then I looked over and saw him walking towards me. My first thought, “Do I wave? Do I walk up to him and say hi? Do I run away?” But then he was the brave one and said, “You must be Chloe.”
And the rest is history. Hah, kidding again.
I’ve decided while writing this that it’s going to be too long to fit into one post so I’ve decided to make it a little chapter story type thing.
Check back soon to see how this whole first interaction went.