Coffee date came with tall order of nerves
After years of not dating, Bernard almost talked himself into cancelling
Bernard is 55, lives in the east end and is retired. He says, “I don’t even know if I have a style. My main goal when I leave the house is to not stand out for the wrong reasons. I guess I could characterize myself as casual but neat.” He likes “spending time with my cat, and with my grown daughters; reading; and doing volunteer work.” He says, “Before I finally tried online dating, I had given up on the idea of being with someone again. Given my age, I had thought that online dating was a route that only desperate people would take.”
The first person who responded to my profile was Greta. There were about10 other messages from women that came in after hers, but I was immediately drawn to Greta’s picture: She was a smiling, sweetlooking person who exuded warmth and sincerity.
She had sent me a one-sentence message. I carefully crafted a response that I hoped would entice a response from her. I wanted to make sure it showed that I was interested, without seeming weird. She wrote back the next day. For 10 days, we wrote once a day, sometimes at great length. I loved being pulled into the orbit of this woman I had never met. We agreed to meet for a coffee.
I was early getting to the coffee shop and decided to go for a walk to relax my nerves. Not having been on a date in years, I felt like a player coming out of retirement.
I felt old, unsure and was second-guessing my decision. I almost kept on walking, right past the coffee shop and back home. I imagined all that could go wrong, and thought, “I’ll just text her later that it wasn’t a good idea.” But I braced myself and walked into the coffee shop and sat down instead.
I saw Greta walk in, smiling and looking for me. She was everything her pictures showed, and more. I have always scorned the idea of love at first sight, but this was it. We both dodged customers and waiters to hug hello. We sat down, ordered coffee and began to chat.
How does one begin? Greta asked me if I was nervous. I gave a dismissive laugh, shook my head, but then confessed, “No, actually I’m petrified.” We both laughed and the conversation just went on effortlessly. Before I knew it, two-and-a-half hours had gone by.
We had talked before about possibly going for a walk in the park after coffee. I was thinking of ways I could get out of that walk. It had all gone so wonderfully, and I was so taken with this woman, I thought, “Something must go wrong soon. It’s best if I leave now and just arrange to meet again.” But then I thought, “Why not just go on from here and see where it leads?”
As we were leaving the coffee shop for the park, I did something completely alien to me: As I helped her on with her coat, I leaned over and kissed her. She smiled. As we walked outside, we held hands. After a few minutes, I told her I was going to cancel my membership to the dating site because, after all, we had found each other. Greta laughed and said she was going to do the same.
The walk in the park was magic. As cliché as it may sound, and would have sounded to me hours before, I knew that I was walking beside the woman with whom I wanted to walk for the rest of my days.
Though it wasn’t said right away, we knew we had found what I had always thought was an illusion and a creation of silly romantics: our soulmate.
Months later, I bought her a ring as a symbol of our love. When I think how I was prepared to walk away from that first date, I am shocked at myself. It’s very true that while we often regret some of the things we do in life, we will come to regret the things we don’t do even more. Every moment just becomes more rich and full of love for us. I am grateful for having taken a chance.
Bernard rates this date (out of 10): 10