Our First Date

I haven’t felt this giddy in a while. I made a new friend today.

During a casual business meeting over lunch with someone I’ve been working with for the past few months, our conversation quickly shifted to more personal matters.

Suddenly I found myself talking about marriage (after divorce), step-kids, birth control and whether or not she or I would find ourselves pregnant anytime soon. [Consensus - NO.]

Turns out her boyfriend has a house right down the street from where my husband and I live. We started talking about the area and how much there is to do around here – with or without the kids.

My imagination went wild and I found myself picturing their family and mine playing at the beach together. How cool would that be?

We finished our lunch, said goodbye, but then I accidentally sent her a text on my way home that was meant for my husband (something about being stuck in traffic). Awkward. At least that’s what I thought until we exchanged a few more texts.

She was taking the drive north along the coast. Past the house that her boyfriend owns. And then she suggested going on a double date sometime this summer.

I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my husband about our new friends and our double date and that’s when I realized what’s been missing from our lives.

When my husband moved to San Diego, I was 7 months pregnant. He started his new job right away and life with a new baby began along with the day-to-day school and work stuff.

Our son is 18 months old now and there are no other couples that my husband and I spend time with. Every once in a while I’ll head out to meet my girlfriends for dinner and drinks or he’ll go out with his friend from work.

My husband moved across the country for us. Said goodbye to his entire family and all his friends. He gave that all up for me.

And I know that having another couple to spend time with is important for us. Good for our marriage. It’s healthy to have outside relationships, ones that we can both experience, together.

I realized something else after lunch. The face-to-face, get to know you better, conversation that this woman and I had was something I had not experienced in quite some time. For the past several years, I’ve been getting to know people from connections I’ve made online first. We may, or may not, ever spend time together in the same room but  when we do, there’s typically a large group of people gathered together for socializing and small talk, something I’m afraid I’ve gotten quite good at.

I’m feeling giddy after having lunch with a new friend. While we ate and talked, neither one of us looked at our phones or seemed to care what time it was and had forgotten about our parking meters that needed to be filled with coins.

I like making new friends. I had forgotten what it was like to go out without checking-in, sharing a photo of my food or tweeting about our conversation. I need to do that more often. Even if its just me and my husband.