Never Can Say Goodbye: Part One

Four years ago, in May, I was sitting in a restaurant having lunch with my cousin. We were chatting about life, work and my daughter’s upcoming 1^st birthday party. In walks an average height, silky-curly black haired, deep dark skin young brotha.  My eyes immediately fixated on him as he walked to place his order. After receiving his order, he briskly walks past, still amazed at his beauty, I notice that I recognize his face. (I am typically very timid and rarely approach men for fear of rejection, but today was different). There was something about him that I couldn’t take my eyes off. As he walked outside and passed my window seat, he playfully sticks his tongue out at me. I couldn’t allow this moment to pass me by so I jumped up and I told my cousin “I’ll be right back-that man is going to be my husband”. My cousin laughed as I politely excused myself to go look for him outside”. I dashed out the door to find him before he drove off. By the time I got to the edge of the lot, he was already in his vehicle, driving off. Thankfully he saw me and stopped the truck, rolled the window down and said hello. As I am telling him he looks familiar , I introduce myself(before I can get out a wors)-he interrupts me and calls me by name! Yes by name! I am stunned, yet quite flattered. Through conversation he rattles off questions asking about my parents and brother  are doing (like he knew them),in efforts to strike my memory as to where I may know him from. After noticing I still did not remember, he explained that we use to work together and we talked quite often. We exchanged numbers and he was off to work.  As I walk back inside, my cousin notices my rosey cheeks (me blushing from the encounter), and discerns everything  went well. My day and my week had been made.

Days had gone by and I had heard nothing from the deep dark skin young brotha I had met a few days prior. I began replaying the meeting in my head trying to recall if there was I anything that may have said to cause him to not call me. I was beginning to lose hope I’d ever hear from him ever again. To my surprise, when least expected, I received a phone call from him (almost a week later). You cannot imagine the smile I had plastered across my face. I was as giddy as a high school teenager  who’s crush spoken to them for the first time. We talked the phone on his way to work and text all night until he got off, then talked some more. After the first week, we made plans to meet in person at a restaurant bar. I was nervous yet very excited. Once he arrived (I got there first), I was again astonished by his handsome grace and flattered to be in his presence. Throughout the night there was not a silent moment in conversation. I had enjoyed myself and didn’t want to leave.  We parted ways at the end of the night and talked or text everyday thereafter.

During our conversations, I learned that he was recently divorced and had a current girlfriend. I was pleased that he was honest with me, but devastated to find out ‘my dream guy’ was already taken. But because I was recently out of a ‘situationship’ myself, I had already decided that I wanted to take it slow (with any guy I may have met) and just be friends. So that’s what we did. We became friends. We talked on the phone, text and hung out time to time; nothing more - nothing, less. We soon began spending more time together and I began to like him. A few months into our friendship, ( I would assume he had begun to like me as well), he would make side remarks about ‘I cant wait till my mom and my partnas meet you. They are going to think you talk funny, but  they are going to love you’, ‘I want you to be the mother of my son’,  and other things like playfully calling me his kids step mom, rubbing my feet (without me even asking), endless amount of affection in the perfect amounts (not too much to where it was clingy, but not too little to where I didn’t notice him in awe of me). It wasn’t planned nor did I expect it to happen, I was just enjoying his time and conversation. He was nice, kind, funny, intelligent, and oh so sexy. Before long, I began having feelings for him. He was spending less and less time with his girlfriend and more time with me. Before they parted ways, I began to become more and more interested in their relationship. Asking questions like “how often do you see her”, “are you in love with her”, “if I am over here all the time, when where and how are you spending time with her”, “why are you hanging onto your title with her when you’re always with me”, etc.etc.  The questions not only were nagging to him, they were causing changes in my mentality, lowering my confidence and decreasing my ability to trust. This marks the beginning of our ‘never can say goodbye’ presently ongoing, revolving cycle, that we call a friendship.

Stay tuned for part 2…..