Love in a time of COVID: Part 2: "...come out for dinner with me...?"

Be your own coach - Hayley Carr - Leadership coach

"Diversity. I believe it is an old wooden ship"

I laughed out aloud. This was a good opener. No hello, just one obscure line from the movie I said I loved in my profile. He's read it, and acted.

Nice work cute cycling guy with dog - but not good enough.

I am completely over this app, I've made a bargain with the universe, the next person to actually ask me out, I will go out with. I am so over it in fact. I'm not even going to tell you that I laughed. You get... no answer.

(Resistance much?)

Twenty minutes later, another ping on my phone. I'm busy making a cup of tea in the kitchen and then I see the line and my stomach drops.

"Would you like to come out for dinner with me tonight?"

Wait, wait waiiiiiiit.

This cute cycling guy has only sent me one anchorman line. This isn't common practise! To simply give a girl one line and then ask her out to dinner before even saying hello. I haven't established through crazy text over-analysis yet whether or not I think he might be psycho! I can't possibly go out with him! It was meant to be one of the other boring guys I've been talking to that feel safe and boring and did I mention boring?

Oh dear.

But I made a bargain.

That bargain... that feels important.

OK, I know. I'll give him some cheek.

So I did... I sent him the cyber version of a shoulder shove. "what do you mean by dinner?"

Lame, lame. It was all I had. I was panicked. Possibly about to use my bargain to go out for "dinner" - whatever THAT meant with a potential axe murderer, stalker, or slimy backpacker...

He texts back: "Um, food... What do you think it means!"

I'm being stupid. I made a damn bargain, and this is what I said I'd do… up until this point all this talk of meeting new people was just talk. I was scared outta my wits!

Something though, told me to go.

A few hours later, there I stand, purposely un-made-up, post-yoga, waiting in the cold outside at the Thai restaurant for the guy with the nice phone- voice, who wanted me to pick him up from the backpackers, to meet me for dinner, and put me out of my stagnant misery.

I was pretty certain I was about to meet a random backpacker hoping for a good time, fly in-fly-out style... and I wasn't up for it.

A tall, bearded guy in brown Doc Martens, a beanie, and a tailored woolen jacket walks right up to me. He's not a backpacker. He's a handsome dude and he seems very out of place here amongst all this. Also, he looks freshly showered. It's clear to me I have very low expectations of people at this point in my life. I need to be here. I'm so cynical. I'm grateful to my former self for getting me to this moment.

"Hey! You must be Jamie?"

He grabs me by the shoulders, and kisses me hello on the cheek. His beard oil smells like lemongrass.

"This is going to be fun" he said. In that moment. I feel every bit of tension fall away from my face.

Phew. He's not a smelly backpacker. Deep breaths.