The day after our first date, I return to work.
The texting continues, which is a relief.
There had been a small part of me wondering whether the intensity of our first meeting had simply been the excitement of a new encounter. Had it been a one-off? Had we both been swept up in the moment?
But Stephen is still there.
So it wasn’t just a one-night stand?
He seems genuinely interested in continuing whatever it is that has started between us, and our conversation picks up almost exactly where we left off.
On my way home from work, I decide to drive past his street and stop to say hello.
He comes out of his father’s house, but something immediately feels different.
He’s frenetic.
Standing beside my driver’s door, he seems aggravated and agitated. He struggles to hold my gaze and appears eager to get back inside, as though I’ve interrupted something or he’s desperate to return to whatever he was doing.
The whole visit lasts barely five minutes.
I drive away feeling uneasy.
Ah, so this is it.
He’s already changing his mind.
Or perhaps:
He got what he wanted, and now I’m dispensable.
The thoughts come quickly.
But then, almost as soon as I get home, my phone lights up.
It’s Stephen.
He’s messaging me again as though nothing has happened.
I’m confused by the contrast between the man I have just encountered and the man now talking to me through my phone. He explains that he’s feeling out of sorts living with his father and that the situation is getting to him.
I accept the explanation.
And the relationship continues to gather momentum.
Over the days following our first meeting, we see each other in the evenings. With everything still closed because of Covid, our dates are mostly spent sitting in my car, talking, laughing and getting increasingly close.
We talk for hours.
I begin to learn much more about Stephen and the circumstances of his life.
He’s divorced and has two teenage sons. He doesn’t get on with his ex-wife.
He owns an inherited house with his brother, but they no longer speak. His brother has moved into the property and, according to Stephen, isn’t paying him the rent he is owed.
For now, Stephen is living with his father, who he describes as a hoarder. He hates living there and desperately wants his own place.
He wants to find work.
He wants to resolve the situation with the house and get the money he believes he’s owed.
He wants to get his life moving again.
And, increasingly, he talks as though he wants me to be part of that future.
It’s exciting to hear.
But I’m also beginning to see something I hadn’t really noticed through our messages and photographs.
Stephen isn’t the completely self-assured, confident man I had initially imagined.
There is vulnerability beneath the confidence.
And there is a lot of baggage.
I’m beginning to wonder whether we’re actually a good fit.
My own life feels relatively settled. I have a good job, a home and a life I’m comfortable with. I’m not looking for someone to rescue or fix. I simply want someone to share my life with.
Stephen, on the other hand, seems to have an awful lot to sort out.
And yet, somehow, I’m drawn further towards him.
Our physical intimacy is developing too.
It’s exciting, but it’s also awkward at times.
Stephen tells me that he has had very little experience, something I find difficult to understand. He’s attractive, interesting and confident enough in many other ways that I can’t quite reconcile the man I’m getting to know with someone who apparently has so little experience of intimacy.
I start to wonder whether perhaps he has simply never experienced a really great relationship.
There’s something flattering about that thought.
Part of me likes the idea that I could show him what a good relationship could feel like. Perhaps together we could create something better than anything either of us has experienced before.
The intimacy may sometimes be tentative and fumbling, but there is tenderness there too.
And passion.
Most of all, there is chemistry.
An extraordinary amount of it.
I have experienced attraction before, of course, but this feels different. There is an intensity between us that I rarely experience, and I find myself thinking that whatever happens, this is something special.
It’s one of the things making it difficult to step back and ask whether everything else about us makes sense.
As the end of 2020 approaches and 2021 waits just around the corner, our dates continue to revolve around my car.
With pubs, restaurants and cinemas closed, there isn’t much else we can do. So we make our own entertainment in the confines of a small car, talking and laughing late into the night before inevitably becoming distracted by the chemistry between us.
The late nights are beginning to take their toll on me.
I’m normally in bed by ten, and suddenly I’m staying out much later several nights in a row.
But I’m enjoying myself too much to complain.
There is something exhilarating about this strange beginning. We’re getting to know each other, discovering what makes the other laugh and finding out just how much attraction exists between us.
I’m beginning to think about the next step.
When will I bring Stephen home?
I’m not ready yet.
But I think I’ll give it about another week.
For now, the car will do.
And as 2020 draws to a close, I’m beginning to wonder what this new year might bring.
