I’d been using OkCupid for a few years by January 2014, which is when Sarah first contacted me. While I’d had some success on the site, January brought some interesting professional times for me, and I went into a bit of a lurker mode, not looking for or expecting anyone.
When she first reached out, I… *hangs head*… took a month to get back to her. Then another month to respond to the first response!
It was a busy time for me. My employer, Cynergy, had just been bought by my current employer, KPMG. As someone moderately high on the responsibility food chain, I had a decent amount on my plate. But as Sarah once said to me in those early days, “you make time for what matters”. I only wish I’d done so sooner!
Over the spring and summer of 2014, Sarah and I saw each other a few times; we went bowling together, played some board games, sat around talking. It was more a matter of a couple busy people taking a break from life than anything else though. During this time period various friends and acquaintances would ask me how I was doing, was I seeing anyone, etc. Each time I would respond that I had gone out with this girl a few times lately but that I wasn’t expecting it to lead to anything because (famous last words), “we’re just from very different backgrounds… how could it ever work?”.
Eventually, in early August, Sarah reached out and said she was really stressed out and just needed a night away from work. She asked if I’d like to hang out, grab dinner, maybe watch some Dr. Who (first clue that maybe I was a very stupid man for thinking it might not work!). I agreed readily enough because I was stressed out and needed a night off too.
Now, throughout this period I’d found myself repeatedly telling friends that I didn’t think much would come from seeing Sarah because of our different backgrounds. But after that night of Dr. Who, I started to realized that these repeated comments were just that… repetitive. I *kept* bringing Sarah up in conversation with friends. I kept thinking about her. Apparently my sub-conscious knew something about her that my pre-frontal cortex wasn’t able to acknowledge. A few different friends (you know who you are) pointed this fact out to me, but it just hadn’t sunk in until that point. So I asked her if she’d like to come over again.
Now, up until that night, I’d been pretty bad about getting back to Sarah on texts. She always initiated, and my responses came slowly most of the time. So it was likely a surprise to her when I suddenly started texting her proactively and asking if she wanted to hang out again. We started hanging out more often and I asked if she’d like to come to a game night with some of my closer friends. We had a great time!
After that, we were texting back and forth when Sarah said, “So, I’m confused… are we dating now?”. I was somewhat taken aback, but replied, “I kinda hope so.” That was the first time she said yes to me. 🙂