On Monday, December 6th, 2021 I booked a 1,160 mile flight from Daytona Beach, Florida to San Antonio, Texas for a first “in-person” (surprise) date with a lovely lady. With digital tickets in hand, it occurred to me that I should find out if she was even available, so I texted her as she was getting ready for work…
She didn’t reply, so I quickly followed up that shocker with my next text because I panicked about leaving her hanging like that.
Shock & Awe!
Poor Carol immediately switched from “My heart hurt” to “Are you shitting me?” She must have been thinking, “Is this a cruel joke? Are you serious about us having dinner? How is that possible when you live over 1,100 miles away?”
Thankfully her next reply indicated that she wasn’t doing anything, so I asked her if she would pick me up at SAT.
Background Info – Steve & Carol
On November 12, 2021 (hey, 11/12/21 has a lot of ones and twos in it) Carol sent me a message on FitnessSingles.com stating that we weren’t a match because I was already living the life on the road that she would like to get on with eventually, and that she had 1.5 years left before she could retire to do so. Seeing no harm in a casual conversation with a pretty woman living over a thousand miles away, I replied, “Quit!”. After several non-flirtatious messages on that dating platform, casually discussing travel mostly, I included my digits in a reply. So Carol was the first to phone-text, on November 18th, sending photos of some of her past trips, and our conversations moved off of the dating platform onto more convenient phone texting. I replied with some Arizona trip photos, and then we shared photos of our collections of vehicles, you know, just casual chatter about stuff friends speak of. In some time, our texts got somewhat deeper, with hints, and on Thanksgiving (November 25, 2021) Carol asked if we were going to continue texting forever or if we’d ever speak to each other. Later that day, I called her and our very long, deep conversations commenced from that day on.
One topic we covered was that people sometimes enter relationships and other situations with a back up plan – “plan A” and “plan B” – but having a plan B in a relationship implies that one is not fully committed. A fully committed relationship requires, no plan B.
After eleven days of countless hours of long distance phone conversation, spending more quality time getting to know each other than most people do in person before their first date, (or hookup without any dates), I booked my surprise flight to San Antonio.
Although we didn’t fly together, this trip brought me physically together with Carol for the first time, so I am counting it as a trip together. I flew MCO to SAT to visit Carol at her house Dec. 10 – 13, 2021.
The day before my flight I had a brilliant idea to get some novelty t-shirts printed, to make Carol smile. I flew with mine on under my jacket, and carried hers in my carry-on. She told me she’d be at the airport waiting for me, so I thought it would be funny to flash her with that shirt so she’d recognize me.
Well, my plane landed and I was walking toward the exit, when I received a text from her asking where I was. When I told her, she realized that she was at the wrong terminal and had to high tail it to my terminal for me to present her with her hug and kiss, and her t-shirt.
At First Sight
I guess we can tell people that we met in the San Antonio airport, although we really knew each other quite well before we met in person.
With a great big hug and kiss, our first in-person meeting was off to a fabulous start. We chatted and held hands in the car from the airport to Carol’s house, where we sat outside on the deck in her back yard. There, in a hammock, we talked and hugged and we were happy.
That was our first meeting, but our first date was along side of Riverwalk. We have similar ideologies, likes and dislikes. This is the beginning of something everlasting.
I hope everyone who reads this can find a way to live with passion. We certainly intend to.
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