Maybe if I get this out I won’t keeping thinking about it all the time? Probably not, but oh well…
Lunch date on Friday went quite well. Conversation was present the whole time; we talked about fondue, and movies, and birthday traditions, although I think I might have lost her for a bit when I launched into an ill-advised explanation of causality and chaos theory as the central idioms of Run Lola Run. That was dumb. She smiled; she was attentive and asked questions, and didn’t seem uninterested at any point that I can recall… She didn’t seem particularly eager to return home, either–a good sign. I’ve been the one to initiate the wrapping up of our previous two encounters–the coffee date and the most recent lunch date. As we were leaving, though, an exchange took place that I’ve been mulling over all weekend. She was just about to walk to her car, since she had driven and I walked (the restaurant is only a few minutes walk from the office), and I said something to the effect of, “Listen, um, would it be okay if I called you sometime and we went out to see a movie or something like that?” to which she responded quickly, almost as if it were a prepared answer, “Well, my weekends are going to be pretty full from here on out.” I thought it odd, since it wasn’t a direct response to my question, but followed up with, “Oh, okay; maybe I’ll just call you sometime and we can figure it out from there,” with a smile. This was the final exchange before we parted ways, and I made a movement in my direction, and she towards her car, and simply answered, “See ya ’round,” at which point I just ventured a quick and nonchalant, “See ya.”
So I’ve been thinking about that, and not trying to overanalyze it, since there’s not really much there to analyze in the first place. I don’t think it would have carried so much weight for me either had it not come at the end of the encounter, where the things we say and do more often than not leave echoes in our thoughts.
I thought it best, though, when I saw her next on Sunday, to just strike up a simple conversation, since I don’t want her to think that every time I talk to her I’m asking her to do something with me. I don’t know her well yet, and we don’t have much of a history friends-wise, so I don’t want to be overzealous in my initiatives towards her.
At church on Sunday I sat with family, just like I usually do, and she arrived after me since she gives some of the freshman girls a ride from campus. Usually she sits on the right side of the sanctuary, and the family and I sit on the center left, but yesterday she and her small entourage sat behind us, which I didn’t realize until later. Disclaimer: It never reached the point where I was distracted from the real reason I was there, but I WAS curious as to where she was.
The key moment came as I was walking back to the foyer after communion. We come forward every Sunday for communion with our friends or family and participate in it with them. My family was one of the first to go up, and we made a little circle, out of the way, holding our bread and grape juice, and prayed, etc… After we finished I walked along the side of the group of chairs, on my way to the foyer, and saw her standing with a circle of friends at the back of the room, participating in communion. Right as I was about to turn the corner around the edge of the chairs and head back to the foyer, she glanced at me. We made eye contact for a brief instant. It surprised me a bit, but I looked again, and she glanced again. This is the first time she’s ever done that, to my knowledge at least. It’s amazing how something that small can have an effect on you, though. I was in something of a glow until I pushed through the doors that led to the foyer.
After the service was over we had a brief, uneventful exchange, and I disengaged myself gracefully from the conversation without asking her what her plans were for the rest of the day or anything of that nature.
I just wish I knew. It might sound like this whole thing is planned, engineered from the get-go, but it’s not. What is she thinking, feeling, doing right now? I wish I knew. Where to go from here? A group thing, I think.