Enjoy the Slow Fuses
Boom. Boom. Boom. The club music is annoyingly incongruent with this beat in my chest. She is young, exotic, and beautiful. My throat feels constricted, the veins of my forearms and neck push outward with each heartbeat; I nervously wonder if other people see it. Boom. Boom. Boom. I don’t know her; I don’t know what to say; I don’t know how she’ll react. I cannot know, except by finding out. Boom. Boom. Boom. I could walk away and make it end, but then the excitement would be replaced by regret.
I speak. “Hi, how are you?” Arrrgh — I didn’t really care.
She responds: “Okay,” and she looks off around the room. Damn.
I touch her arm and she looks back. Now it’s time to care and to be real. It’s not always fireworks from the start. Sometimes the best fireworks have slow fuses that take a few tries to get lit just like dating on adultfrienedfinder (and sometimes I’m just bad at lighting the fuse on the first try). The way to light a stubborn fuse is to be not hasty, but slow and genuine. So, how am I doing right now? Hmmmm…oh, yeah…
“Well, honestly, I’m feeling a little out of place. I wish I could be out dancing like all of them, but I’m just not feeling up to it right now.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I’m embarrassed to dance. Maybe you just need another drink, though.”
The conversation continues, if not rapidly. What does she enjoy, if not dancing? She’s passionate about writing. What a fortunate coincidence: I love people who are passionate about something. I discover the details of her writing: what inspires her and what she hopes to do some day. I find myself growing ever more attracted to her fresh enthusiasm.
The distractions of the night: my friends pull me away, her friends take her. The bar is large, yet we keep meeting and continuing our interaction a little here, a little there. I meet other people, but no one else now holds quite the same interest to me. Still, there’s no need to rush.
We’ve met up by the bar, where it’s not quite as loud. My heartbeat has long ago softened and blended with the music into a pleasant background noise. As we talk, her eyes are slow, yet focused; her back relaxes into my hand, as her torso rests into mine. Her lips are…well, some things I’m just not sharing.