So that was a really long first “date”. My sister dropped me off at Brooks and he gave me a tour of his home. He is unbelievably neat. He’s been there two years and it looked like he had just moved in….minus boxes and clutters. Pretty impressive…he clearly takes care of his belongings. Conversation was super easy. He is a talker like me so there was no awkwardness…just a really comfortable feeling. He told me that he had been talking to his friend from junior high who had been with him the night we met when we were 14. He asked him to guess who he was going to the lake with the next day. He couldn’t and when he told him he said his friend thought it was the coolest thing ever and was excited about it…lol. Anyway…temperatures were quickly rising and we anticipated the boat launch would be a nightmare so we decided to drive out to my friends’ and go out with them on their “party barge”. So our first date turned into a group outing.
There were eight of us. My sister and her hubby, our friends Z & J and J’s brother and his wife. We got there at around 12:30, I made introductions and we chatted for about a half an hour and got wet off the dock before piling onto the boat and heading out. It was a gorgeous day and not nearly as busy on the water as we had anticipated. Brook fit right in. Being born and raised in the town, he and Z discovered that Z’s really good friend was the older brother of Brook’s best friend who lived next door to him for his entire childhood. Brook also works with our friends’ next door neighbour. So lots of connections between them that made the day really easy and comfortable.
Probably not my ideal first date because of the minimal alone time but a really, really awesome first meeting. Definitely checked the “fits in with my friends” box. We were out on the boat until around 6:00 and then when we got back, our friends invited us to come back to their place for dinner. We were there until around 9:30 before we needed to head back home. I gave Brook a big hug goodbye and he drove off shortly before us. My friends took the opportunity to give me the third degree about the nature of the friendship and my sister laughed and said it was because they really liked him and are probably hoping this is the guy I end up with (they met both Jack and TDH as well…not quite the same approval rating apparently).
On the way home, Brook texted that he had fun and my friends are “good people” and we agreed we would have to do it again soon. He’s on vacation for the next month and has a few things planned. He’s actually going sky diving on Wednesday with his 75 year-old mother. He hasn’t gone before but she went when she was 70, if you can believe it, and wanted to go again. Brook is a bit of adrenaline junkie so he’s pretty excited. On the boat, we spent a lot of time talking about our love of travel. We had texted a few days ago about how cool it would be to take a month-long trip to Europe and where we would want to go, etc… I joked that “it’s a date” and it could be like a pact people make in their 20’s…if we are both single by 35, we will get married… only this would be the travel version of that. The subject came up when we were on the boat and he said he was only partly joking…lol. I said “me too” and we laughed.
So…who knows where this is going? What I do know is that if it is going anywhere, it will be at a really slow pace with no pressure. The comfort level between us was amazingly high and for the first time in my life, I find myself being perfectly okay with just seeing where it goes without trying to force anything. I want this person in my life as my friend, at the very least. If it becomes something more, that would be fantastic, but I am not setting my sights on that. If he turns out to be a platonic travel buddy, that would be awesome too. Anyway…suffice it to say, our first meeting could not have gone better and I went to sleep with a smile on my face.
