A Perfect Date

Though relationship history would be the last thing people ask when demanding my update, fate has generously put me through several dates that made me feel good about myself. It ranges from going to museums or galleries to cooking dinner together. Of course not all of them are perfect but for me, the perfect one always involves inexhaustible conversation in a quiet place. I tend to fall for people's minds but is not so good at palm or eye reading. Listening to what they say, thus, is my go-to way.

I discover it in my first year of college. We probably need to highlight the word discover in this blog, as that is my favorite way of learning and developing. I listen to no advice, even from the people I respected the most. I hate self-help books for their insensitivity to context. I despise tutorials for mistakes are an eminent part of it and I don't enjoy making mistakes. On the contrary, there is no harm in discovery. The mistake you unveil yourself is not a mistake, it is a discovery. It will be just as valuable as your eureka moments. Ironically, this has made me a noisy advice giver. 

Anyway, I think in that first year, I went somewhere only with a male friend for the first time. He was my senior whom has helped me a lot during the orientation weeks. I found him pleasant to talk with through chat. One day, we agreed on going book shopping together. He needed new books for his new semester, and definitely so did I. Unfortunately, the date destroyed the relationship. Though he was fun 'online', he was much more shy and quiet in person. While we could talk about many things on phone, we barely have a conversation on that day. For me, it was a call-off. Nothing was going on well afterward.

Another milestone in my poor dating history is a couple of dinners with my teenage crush. I had a huge crush on -again- my senior in Junior Highschool. Coincidentally, when I have to part ways with my friends to attend university in another city, that freakin university united me with my old crush. We are actually more than two people who graduated from the same middle school, but if I talk more about it the mystery will go and this will look no different than a diary with a padlock that I forget to lock. I assume anyone -if any- who is reading it now knows well that teenage love involves a lot more imagination than reality. The crush I was having for this boy stayed for years but deep inside my heart (read: head) he was always an 8th-grader boy that I knew back then. At that strange place, time is nowhere to be found. It was some sort of Neverland where nobody is growing up. 

That first year of college created several moments for us to meet. While old memories connect us in some way, I still found the person in front of me is already a different person from the one that I like several years ago. I also discover on that day, that closeness to a person is impossible to build from a mere projection of him we create from pieces we collect when seeing him from afar. Rather than the boy changing or growing into the strange person in front of me, I probably never get the right image of him in the first place. We could not talk about the same topic for a long time, and that is what awaken me. It was supposed to be a romantic long-long stroll in a drizzle with a good amount of humor and a nice dinner, but I felt like losing something.

Then there was a guy I called home. The two of us never really went out together for we belong to a bigger crowd. So wherever we go it was always with many other friends. This gang has existed -also- since middle school. As one might guess, the gang, also that guy and I, in particular, scattered in various cities for college. Though it seemed like drawing distance, it surprisingly juxtapose the two of us. We talked very frequently. We grew together. Unlike when we were at school, we started to talk about topics that are unthinkable before. We shared the loneliness and hardship of growing up. We shared our vulnerabilities. When there came news to celebrate, he was one of the first persons to know mine and I was one of the first to know his. I was not sure what to call this relationship. I feel like drawing squares and conceptualizing definitions was my last concern at that time. I just know that my guy has taught me about the comfort and excitement I want to find in a relationship, and it was, again, through long-long conversations just before passing out at the end of the day.

However, there were also a few other moments, with several other people, when long conversations failed to do much. I'd rather call this debate or chit-chat than conversation or discussion. The difference is fundamental. In a debate, we either fight over something clearly outside us or only talk about ourselves. In conversations, you can find empathy. It is about talking and listening simultaneously. That is why it could be a door to a person's both mind and heart. Contrastingly, a debate could take a lot of time and remain shallow. The mutual understanding was never being built despite the beautiful galleries, breathtaking museums, and fancy cafes in which it took place.

People changed and this had my view towards some guys flipped when meeting them again after a few years has passed. Sometimes, good conversations just could not happen because it wasn't yet be destined. I met one guy at work. Since our earliest meetings, I have sensed that he is also a sucker of meaningful conversations. But, I don't know why he insisted on keeping the shallowness of our debates. It made us a friend for a really long time. Just shortly before I left the town where we met, he turned sweet. There was this one day when we spent the whole day together. We left very early and got home very late. On that day, we initially just want to go watch a movie in the early hours to avoid crowds. But then he just followed me ticking my plans for that day one by one. I ended up postponing work for we are drowning in a slightly tipsy conversation. It was the first time I shared my unpublished novel with someone else after a very very long time.

I also kind of presume that a good conversation did not happen on those imperfect dates because I somehow outgrew these guys mentally. When I met the older version of them, a few years after, they turned out to be better at it. Their sensitivity and self-assurance thrived. They became a much more attractive person.

Usually, I did not put much effort into lighting up an exciting conversation. In most cases, I backed off the first time I initiated things and they seemed uninterested. In the best-case scenario, after such backing off, I played with their rhythm, saying yes to wherever the conversation they initiated led, even if it remains shallow for years. Only in one case, I work quite hard to make the guy I was with talk to me.

This case is different because when I met him for the first time, he was already a storyteller. His personality was fragile but he is assured of what he is doing and what he wants in his life. Those qualities radiate strongly when he is telling a story. Telling a story, my friend, is different than only randomly talking about one thing or oneself. A storyteller cares about his audience. His narrating style is dashing for he understands his spectators. Thus, even before we are having a conversation, he is already a sensitive and self-assured person with very alluring rhetoric.

You might think I saw him too great so I did not hesitate to chase after him. But I wasn't. I tried to keep my distance because I have a far greater responsibility than crushing on someone at that time, but fate just dragged us closer. The more I listen to his stories, the more I become brave to respond. First with roasting, then with serious comments, and lately -before I realize it- by sharing my stories. He took a long way but after a few months, we did become close. After those few months, our dates, be it as simple as doing homework, going to a museum or park, to cooking and having dinner together, listed as my perfect ones.

Through the time spent together, we found our role in this relationship. He share his fragile side in which I could help him and I share mine in which he could help me. That was totally new for me. Never did I be that honest with a person I knew for less than a year. Unfortunately, it was still far from a happy continuation (not ending, I am not a Disney princess). The relationship dried out as the conversation do so. We reach a part in which obstacles are evident. Even their high level of hindrance is evident. As I am, he is new to this world. Eventually, the both of us silently walk separate ways before the impossibility hurt us even more. The dates remain perfect though, even if the relationship is not.

Since nothing is really working, in the future, perhaps I need to formulate a new method to fall in love. Ah, as if there is a method for it. But if I shall do so, rolling great conversations out of my way of finding the right person is impossible. It has led me many times to the beauty of this life, nevertheless.