Wow. I'm still reeling a bit. I just got asked out for the first time in my life. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, I should start at the beginning.
Last week, no...before that...a month ago an old friend/acquaintance who I had kept a slight communication up with since he was in Afghanistan, started pestering me to talk to him on facebook a bit, and asked for my phone number. Now, I thought he was just lonely, but I didn't have time to give him my number because I was really busy. He found it on my skype page and started texting me. I texted back, twice, then I got engrossed in stuff at school and forgot about him. I knew he was back in the states and with his buddies, so I wasn't too concerned. Life went on.
At church, the day after I got back, I said hi and he made a point to ask me to have lunch with him that week. I said he could contact me later about it. He did. He called me and asked me to go to Red Robin with him. I told him I'd have to talk to my family about my schedule. I thought it seemed odd, like a date, but everyone in my family said it was just him missing his friends. I argued that we had never been close, but I conceded. Perhaps part of me wondered if he liked me and wanted to see if he would say anything.
Lunch was fun. He was a gentleman and opened all the doors and paid for the meal, I was hoping that he was just wanting to catch up with an old friend. The conversation went well and mostly free of the subject I feared, until...he commented on the "big rock" on my finger. I explained that it was a purity ring. He pressed and asked if I had a special guy, I said that I didn't have a boyfriend. I wanted to explain that I almost did, or that I hoped something would come of a relationship back at school, God willing, but this was not the time. We laughed awkwardly and changed the subject, to the Avengers.
That very movie was what brought things to the present. My sister planned a night where we would go see the Avengers with this guy and two other friends. The movie was great, but then this was my second time seeing it. The car ride home was uneventful, until we reached the driveway. He would be leaving in two days for the military again for a few months before he was out of it for good. He sighed and said goodbye. Then asked if he could talk to me. My sister left me and him in the car. He looked at me in the back seat and told me that he liked me and that he wanted to pursue a relationship with me.
Wow. Now, it was not done in a particularly romantic way, just him asking me in his dim car, but that made it easier to answer him. I told him, in the kindest way possible, how flattered I was, that I wasn't dating at the moment or interested in him, but that I had valued his friendship. Then I said goodbye and went into my house.
I feel sorry for him. I hate to be causing him any pain, but he needed to be told that there was no hope for him to cling to for a future relationship. I've never rejected anyone before, I'd never been asked out by anyone before. I never want to go through this again.
I told one of my friends about it and she summed the experience up well: "Wow, that's crazy."
I always think that there is a lesson to be learned in every experience--especially the painful ones. At this moment, I don't see one here. I don't know why this happened to me. I don't know why this happened to him, but I know that God has a purpose in everything that happens. I must trust in that. I must trust in His will. That is my daily prayer, not my will, but Thine be done.
This was certainly not an adventure I wanted to experience this summer though. Hopefully the next one will be better.
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