The First Date
Personal Storytelling Exercise 1
These essays are separate from my usual writing for no other reason that I am writing them as part of a program I am currently going through around stories, taking up space, and sharing more personally. While that is a lot of what I intend to do on Substack anyway, in my mind these feel slightly different and their own ‘category’ for one reason or another. So… here we go.
“Is there parking?” I messaged him, the nerves starting to ramp up and a secret part of me almost looking for an excuse to bail.
“Yeah, they have a whole parking lot, there will be plenty of spaces,” he replied quickly.
We were set to meet in about an hour.
I’d spent the day driving back to Charleston from Florida. It was a Wednesday, early February, and I was only a few months out of my last relationship, newly arrived in town, and honestly… desperate for some human interaction.
I wasn’t ready to date—the last relationship hadn’t been a healthy one—but I didn’t know how else to meet people, so I swiped right.
I had spent hours crafting the perfect bio. Bumble in 2016 was simple—just a short blurb and a handful of photos to capture your entire essence. Mine? “I just really want to play True American.” A dog whistle for the New Girl fans and, in my mind, a subtle way of saying: I’m not really looking to date, just to hang out.
And yet, despite my carefully nonchalant approach, there I was, double-checking the parking situation, about to meet someone I had technically swiped right on. Maybe I wasn’t as uninterested in dating as I thought.
We met at Royal American, which I would come to learn is where he’d take all his first dates—as a bit of a ‘weed them out’ process. The dive bar was known for their ‘shot and a beer’ of a house-made cinnamon whiskey and a High Life. I took it without question and the date evolved.
I couldn’t tell you the explicit details, my memory is unfortunately kind of shitty. But I know the highlights—
I asked if he ‘had friends’ and explained my desire for friends, being new to town. He pointed across the bar to a booth where two people sat taking selfies with us in the background. “Yeah,” he explained. “I was originally supposed to come here with those two tonight, but I bailed to meet up with you. They decided to crash. You’d like the girl, Emily, a lot.”
With a slight buzz, I told him about my cat passing away and how she had seen me through my last relationship and I felt like it was a spiritual experience because the vet said she shouldn’t have been able to live that long. “I think she was waiting til I was out and safe and then could rest,” I teared up. He didn’t judge (at least not outwardly) and agreed.
I invited him to feel my fake tooth, remarking on how distinctly smooth it felt compared to normal teeth. His unwashed finger in my mouth somehow didn’t disgust me. We laughed about how weird the conversation was.
And then we giggled endlessly when he drew me a rough map of the Charleston peninsula in the condensation on the bar-top, and I pointed out how—objectively—it looked like a dick. He laughed, unfazed, as he dragged his finger through it to show me where not to ‘live above.’
It was easy, effortless.
There was no posturing, no need to impress—just a natural rhythm between us, as if we’d always known each other.
There’s that quote—the one about meeting someone and thinking, oh, it’s you.
Not necessarily fireworks or intense passion off the bat, but just this calm sense of knowing that this person was my person.
And I wasn’t ready to date, but I wanted to date him.
Recently we celebrated 9 years together. We’ve experienced so much together and have so much more to experience.
We still giggle over dick jokes and talk endlessly about cats. His friends have become my own. It’s been the easiest partnership and the most fulfilling. I think a lot about that first date and that calm sense of knowing, oh it’s you.
I told him recently that I’ve never known love as unconditional as his. I’ve never felt safer to be all of me—the light and the dark, the positive existentialist and the prone-to-depressive-moments nihilist, the anxiety ridden and the ambivalent. I’ve never felt more understood, appreciated, and cared for. Early in our relationship I’d almost look for reasons for him not to love me. I’d act out, try to get a rise out of him, try to prove how deeply unlovable I really was—and time and time again he reminded me that he really did—does—love me. All of it. Without question or waver. Without having to be earned.
It’s remarkable what that can do for someone like me, who at her core, struggles to think she’s allowed.
It’s been healing. Transformative. Empowering.
I’m grateful Royal American had parking and that I didn’t bail on that early February evening.
I’m grateful that, oh, it’s you.