Our First Date

Continued from: How I Met My Man.

Friday evening came, and as I got ready for my date with Jason, I tried to think of things to talk to him about because I was a little worried that it would be up to me to carry the conversation the entire evening.  Although I really wasn’t interested in him, I had agreed to go, out of respect for the Bossard family and because I was taught that you should always accept a first date as long as he was a “nice Christian young man.”

He drove up as I was on my way back from walking my dog.  He got out of his car and walked right up to pet her.  My dog was a nipper and rarely let a stranger pet her.  That was definitely a good sign.  “Hmm,”  I thought.

Jason had chosen a Mexican restaurant which I thought was very sweet since he had learned that I had lived in Mexico.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easily we talked.  Still, I was always full of questions, and having been burned recently,  I blurted out, “Do you lie?”  He looked at me very shocked, laughed easily, and said, “Well, yeah, sometimes!”  Then he talked to me at length about his life and spiritual struggles.  I was impressed because he didn’t talk himself up or try to impress and flatter me, but was real and genuine.

He had been planning to take me to the State Fair after we ate, but knowing how expensive it was and how little time we would actually have to be there, I told him I’d be just as happy to do something else.

We ended up in downtown Lincoln in the Haymarket where we walked around and then got coffee and sat down at The Mill.  A lady came by selling roses in a basket.  When she asked Jason if he’d like to purchase a rose, he immediately said, “Sure.” He pulled out his wallet and bought me a rose.  I was so surprised.  What I had expected was for him to look at me and ask me if I wanted one.  In this case I would have been inclined to reply that it was not necessary, giving him the out to tell the lady no thank you.  I had been in similar situations before.  I thought it was so incredibly romantic that he just bought it for me!

It was while we were sitting there that we had what I like to refer to as our cheesy moment.  I had asked him what his favorite color was.  He said blue.  Well, there are lots of shades of blue.  I looked around, and realizing that I was wearing a navy blue shirt, asked, “This color blue?”  Sure enough it was.

“What is your favorite color?”

“Red,”  I replied.  Red has always been my favorite.

He looked down at his shirt and said, “This color?”

I think we realized at the very same moment that we had in fact shown up on our date wearing each other’s favorite color.  Awkward!  We both kind of laughed nervously and moved on to other things.

We walked around the Haymarket for a while and then ended up on a bench at the old train station and talked in the cool evening breeze.  During the conversation it came up that he’d been to a church college group recently, and they danced the Macarena.  Since I was a Spanish teacher, he expected that I would know what this was, but I had never heard of it.  “Show me how it goes,”  I taunted him, not really expecting him to do it.  This kind, quiet and obviously normally reserved guy said, “Okay.”  He got up in the middle of the Haymarket and move by move, not knowing a lick of Spanish, did a full demonstration.  I was doubled over, lying on the bench, I was laughing so hard!  He didn’t mind at all that I was laughing.  He finished his presentation and then, laughing also, once again joined me on the bench.

On the way back to my apartment, I realized that I had not enjoyed myself like this in a very, very long time.  I still had some reservations about his age and some of the issues he was facing in his life at that point.  But when he asked me if he could see me again, I heard myself saying yes, and I knew that I would very much be looking forward to it!

If you’d like to read more about our love story click here:  Our First Valentine’s Day.