A False Sort of Adoration

His hair is like night itself, I half expect to see stars appear though the longer I stare the more their absence is felt. It’s odd, this position I now find myself in. To be on a date with someone I already love, someone I’ve pined for, prayed spirited words to unknown forces, all hoping that we would someday meet. It’s interesting, how I put you on this throne, possibly undeserved, time will tell, I tell myself, through the course of our time spent I’ll know. It’s a crowded place, where my dreams yearn to place you, there are other contenders but you’re the only one I have met in person, so you see, you’ve cut out the other competition. They exist in the shadows while you glisten with my adoration at the center of it all. It exists next to the monument of you, the placeholder I gave you until now, where we finally meet and I can forge my own memories of a version of you I’ll get to know.

Alone in thought I figure I best make conversation, to experience you, to get to know you outside of this marble cast I built you to be.

“So how has this year been for you?”

I ask the question, already having an idea from the pictures you post, snapshots and glimpses into your life, what I take for truths, any bit of you I can have in a sort false memory of time spent together. Though now in meeting I find it challenging to be authentic. I stare at your night hair as you speak, explaining the tales of this year, my ears landing on your words, “I haven’t done much this year, it’s been hard” but this, this just isn’t true, I have watched you, it seemed as if you were enjoying yourself.

In the end, it’s no use in trying to pay attention I’m too distracted by the anticipation felt from what I want to tell you, what I’m going to tell you. The waiter starts to make their way over to our table and I widen my eyes in the hopes that they’ll read the signal to go away, for now, while I say what it is I need to say.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you, I’m an admirer of your work” what I mean to say is that I’ve watched you, in everything you’ve been in, at least twice over, perpetually mesmerized by you, your speech, your expression. Perhaps I’ve fallen in love with your characters but I’d like to think that those are indeed bits of you that you share, drawing from your truths, your stories.

“Thank you, that means a lot to me” you do a sort of purr in return to match your smile, an expression of your ego stroked by my words.

“What is it that you do?” You ask me with a sort of innocence, and I am again reminded that you don’t know me at all, I just know you, some version of you, while I’m just a stranger to you.

You get up to go to the bathroom and I take the time to cry quietly to myself. Why am I crying? I can’t exactly say. Perhaps it is because you don’t know me and I love you deeply and that this imbalance is the cause of my sadness. As you again approach the table I lean down towards my purse, wiping away the tears that fell with the tablecloth in the hopes that you won’t notice. It is in this movement that I decide not to hold back, that I can’t risk it, you not knowing. It’s not worth the agony slowly starting to build.

Could I attribute this unforeseeable trajectory of the date, where I profess my love to you already, to a sort of melting of the mind? That maybe I had lost my senses altogether, rendered incoherent from the intoxicating haze of your person, the haze you emit just by being you. But who could predict the afternoon would lend itself to you? That somehow we would meet online, a random algorithm or answered prayer, having our first date go a bit sideways because I was too enamored with you to begin with, before I even knew you, really.

I can’t help myself, can no longer leave things to chance—

“I think I've always loved you” he stares at me but his face, it isn’t warm, not the reception to my declaration I had hoped for.

“But you’ve only just met me” he furrows his brow a bit, and I suppose he’s holding back, trying not to be entirely rude at my confession.

“Well, you see, it’s a feeling I just have, to put it plainly, from the moment I saw you, I just knew”

“Knew what?”

“That the love I’ve had for you is true, that it’s always been this way…”

He looks down at his glass of wine, merlot to be exact, almost dipping his nose in it, head so low as if he could shrink away from me, disappear into the glass altogether, leave me and my wildly unmatched feelings alone.

I start moving my fingers together, weaving them into themselves, the sweat of my palms making skin stick. “I’m just joking” I try giving out a low chuckle but it’s no use, I’m certain he doesn’t believe me and why should he, it’s just not true. If only I can convince him and let him stay, just a little while longer, convince him that he feels the same way towards me. I meant what I said though it’s clear I need to take it back, the feeling too big for him to bare. And he can’t leave, not just yet, not when he is finally getting to know me, the me who has prayed for this day to come.

“So have you been able to work this past year?” But he doesn’t pick his head up from his glass, just keeps staring into it, eyes lost in its red color, perhaps if I threw it in his face he would look up, with nothing left to stare at but me. But surely he would leave then and I would be just as upset as I am now, maybe more. So I leave my hands in my lap and continue to watch him as he watches his drink. What could I possibly talk about to get him to look at me? To give me the opportunity to make him fall in love with me?

Instead I can’t help myself I say it again, “I think I love you, I read it in your eyes, I think you love me too” he coughs as if choking on words, finally looking up, directly into my eyes as he says, “please stop saying this, you’re making me uncomfortable.”

“OK, so if you won’t tell me what it is I already know about you I’ll just change the subject” but there is nothing to talk about, I have nothing more to say. I only want to discuss how we are destined for each other and of the importance of this matter being discussed, acknowledged, respected. We are wasting time not being together and this I cannot stand.

“I can tell you’re still thinking about it…”

“Well, doesn’t it interest you at all why I should think this?”

He pauses and looks again at his drink, I can tell he’s thinking about my question or maybe he’s just trying to avoid the topic altogether.

“I think I’ll just explain it anyway… I think I love you because I immediately felt it in my heart, it’s hard to explain exactly but think of it as a knowing, an intuitive understanding that my body confirmed when I saw you. I had felt this way before and when we finally met, I just knew. That after all this time spent watching you on screens I would finally meet you and know that my love is true. That we are destined for each other. Can’t you feel it? Don’t you know—“

“No, I can’t, I’ll say it again, we’ve only just met and this is our first date. I think I’m beginning to like you less the more you say these things.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate because I love you. And I know it’s not just me, I know that you love me too.”

“How can you know such a thing?”

“Truthfully, I dreamt it, but I can see in the way you look at me that you do” if only he would do that, look at me. He swallows the rest of his wine, leaves a $20 bill on the table and gets up.

“It was nice to meet you but I just don’t think this is going to work out.”

I start to follow him out of the bar then it occurs to me what I’m doing so I stop myself and instead I shout after him—

“I’ll always love you, call me if you change your mind!”

Perhaps he’ll only consider me half crazy and return instead to give me a chance. But in the end that was it, a pathetic first date. Still, I am left with a feeling of pride, proud that I said my feelings aloud, I usually keep them locked inside.

I sit back down at the table and I wait, wait for the waiter to join me. The carpet in here is hideous, like the wine it too is red but its presence, it upsets me, I have half a mind to spill my drink on it, it’ll help improve the pattern I’ll say in my defense. That blinded by my infatuation with a person who is beginning to love me, I’m sure of it, I let my hands slip and the glass fall. Finally the waiter comes over.

“Would you like anoth—“

“Won’t you sit with me?” I ask, “I think I could learn to love you too.”