The Serendipitous Sleepless Night

I decided to take a little break from disastrous dates, bad boyfriends, and miserable marriages to share a savory morsel of sweetness.  My inspiration for creating this blog.

I never believed those stories were real until it happened to me.   No, not a commentary on the #MeToo movement.  Not a line from a Playboy or Hustler story.  The stories to which I’m referring are the great love stories that have survived time.  Love stories that have been reduced to “fairy tales” because no one believes them to be true.  (Okay maybe fairy godmothers take a whole lot of creative imagination…)  I have to say I was beginning to doubt them too.  My online dating experiences could be considered a culmination of Sex and the City + Seinfeld + Grey’s Anatomy all mixed into one.  However, one day, or one night rather, it happened!

I had just arrived home from spending a week in Singapore (alone).  I had unpacked, started laundry, bought groceries, had a nice dinner (after 23 hours of airplane/airport food) and intended to get to bed early.  I gave up at 11pm as I was wide awake.  I searched the TV for anything interesting to watch, I scanned Facebook to see if any of my late night friends were around.  Nothing.  I saw a commercial for Farmersonly.com.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s an online dating site for farmers and singles who live in rural areas.  This was Texas after all!  That gave me the idea to give Tinder a late night twirl.

I wasn’t looking for a hook up.  I just wanted to see if the scenery had changed during the week I had been away.  I swiped and swiped, no, no, no, NO WAY, no….and then I saw him!  His profile pic was actually in profile (ironic) and it was a head shot, showing head, shoulders and his arm.  I could tell he was in shape.  It was a beautiful pic of a beautiful man on a beautiful beach at what looked to be sunset.  I was a smitten kitten!

His profile was brief and to the point.  It said (I saved a screenshot of it) “I know I look younger.  Love to travel, meet people.”  He listed his height, weight, and nationality – French, and his wechat address.  I scanned through the rest of his photos.  He matched his stated height and weight, I could see his face clearly, every shot was in a very different location showing he did indeed travel.  I swiped right on this cutie!

“It’s A Match” popped up!  That magical little ego stroking message!  So, Mr. Frenchie had already seen me too.  It was after midnight, he hadn’t been active on Tinder for a few hours, but I sent him a message anyway.  I was feeling bold and confident.  I sent….wait for it….”Hi”.  (Insert short video of a balloon deflating blowing raspberries)  I know, I know!!!  Epic fail!  I put myself into the stupid opener category, the total lack of originality category, the how lame can you be category.  Too late…I already sent it and I couldn’t take it back.

Eventually I fell asleep.  The next day, just before noon, Frenchie sent me a message!  “Hi, sorry I missed your message.  I go back to France.  I would have been pleased to meet you and have a drink… Next time.”  I messaged him back and realized he really was going back to France, right then!  He was on his way to the airport.  He lived in France and had only been in Houston less than 24 hours for work.  We sent a couple more messages before he left including our WhatsApp numbers…just in case we wanted to keep in touch.  Just in case???  Why would we keep in touch?  We hadn’t met and we lived 5000 miles and an ocean apart.

I didn’t expect to hear from him again.  However, the next day, when I woke up he had sent me a pic from the airport in Paris.  We sent a text to each other every few days.  He would send me pics from the places he traveled.  It turned out he worked for a major airline company.  We had established a friendship.  I looked forward to his texts as he had a great sense of humor.  It wasn’t long before texting became part of our daily routines and we never seemed to run out of things to talk about.  I believe that our friendship flourished because there was no pressure.  There was no question of “where is this going”.  Where could it go?  There was no possibility of meeting for a date.  Or was there?