Wrote this one up in 2013
The Traveller
Last night (on a date of course!) I am messaged by a woman from Salt Lake city, Utah. She is in town for the next day for a work related function, and would I like to hang out?
The assumptions are flying. Typically this sounds like a booty call request, so I tell her I'm on a date and possibly would be able to hang later. Pretty short, as I was urinating at the time. The message, that is.
So my date continues, and I'll spare you the details, but "The Traveler" writes back that she's moved on from me for the night and has other events planned with someone else, but perhaps brunch the next day would work?
Sure, brunch, whatever. I'm partial to these types of get-togethers because they are unique and interesting. Anyway, I'm downtown early the next day, and we're texting back and forth particulars about being a tourist in Portland, making reservations at Mother's on a Sunday morning (45 minute to an hour long wait,) and that she's brought me a gift that is not cream-filled cock-n-balls from voodoo. Because the wait is so long I decide to put myself on hold early, say by half an hour, and go back to work to clean up. I, uh, was still wearing the same clothes from the night before, for some reason. I then get a text from her that would change the tone of the next 6 hours:
"I like playing with interpersonal norms and nonverbal communication. So, here's the experiment: before anything else, words or anything we greet by kissing. Then proceed as usual. Up for it?"
Oh hell yes I was! So I doubleplusgood brush my teeth, check my beard for rations left behind, and head off for Mother's. She texts that she's at the river, and I should meet there instead. Nothing. She texts that she's in a yellow hat, and I can't miss her. Nothing, really, though there are some yellow specs in the distance. I head closer and sure enough a form is looking over at the water. I walk closer, closer, my heart is absolutely pounding at this point. Suddenly, just as I approach, the looks at me, smiles, and we embrace. The sun was out, and I just had my first kiss without a word spoken. This was a very good start. Her treat was a limequat to be eaten whole. Devoured.
We walked to Mother's and laughed naturally about the situation, but also the immediate comfort felt between us. Throughout the day she never really frowned or showed malice or got angry or upsetness, except at one point when she saw someone on some pretty bad drugs out of my field of vision.
We spoke of dating and relationships, the usual date topics, but also being alone and being OK with that. Of Buddhism, of poly and mono and dating many and dating remotely. Her goal was mostly to use OKCupid to meet guys remotely, not in her home town. She had been single for ~5 years, and was OK in this, except for her travels, she wanted someone to join her on those journeys. She had just spent a good part of the previous week at a conference in Newport.
She adored Portland. She had been walking around the city like a wide-eyed tourist soaking it up, and in our walks she would glow with delight at the clown car with the monkey puppet in the window, bike tours to breweries, Chinese Garden allowing peek throughs. We didn't have quite enough time to go to the Chinese Garden, but I took the opportunity to ask for another kiss, this one real and almost without prompt. Delightful.
She had to head to the airport, so we slowly walked NW Portland to the Hostel she was staying at. I don't even know really what she did for a living, somehow throughout the entire day we avoided that topic, but I suspect it had to do with the Utah Parks Department, or self-employment, or some melding of the two? She asked about my kids, not my profession. As the day melted away, I wondered. Was the connection we felt bound by the very restrictions put upon us? Was our eventual separation what allowed the relationship to flourish? There was the impending knowledge that it was going to end, but no rush to consummate some rapid goal of a relationship, like coitus or "When will I see you agains" like many dates have. By the train ride to the MAX, by the end, I was boxing her into a part of the train, and she said any other person doing this to her would feel restrictive and unsafe, but with me it was comforting and welcome. I felt like we were within a movie, with the rushing of the train and the beautiful Portland scenery almost unnoticed as we either looked in each other's eyes, kissed, or looked away in pensive thought about how this was going to end. How awesome this time was we could spend talking about our lives. It truly was a relationship of the now.
The end wasn't sad. It didn't end with a "now what" or how we would frame the relationship for the future. After we first parted she texted me she didn't have to leave yet, so we had 20 more minutes, somehow closer, our legs wrapped around each other as I helped massage knots in her shoulder. And then it was over. She flew back to her city, with indeterminate return plans. I veiled a visit to Salt Lake City, but without a formal invite, it was up in the air. I was left sort of stunned, sort of shocked at how whirl-windish it all felt. Did we have a genuine "connection" of the type that might last for years? Did we just have a day and we should honor that day? She kept saying how great it was to end her Portland trip with a tourguide/date that never seemed to want to impress her, to show off, to give her reasons to doubt my authenticity.
It was reassuring that I'm not jaded in my dating, that there is hope for romance.