Our Love Story—Anticipation and Trepidation

I sat on the floor against the wall on the second floor of the college library at our pre-determined meeting place and waited nervously for Rob to walk up the stairs. I got there early, and his meeting ran over so he got there late. This left me plenty of time to pray and reflect on my past two and a half months at Corban.

I thought back specifically to a conversation I vividly recall having with Rob several weeks earlier. It started out in the cafeteria, where he was mulling over the difficulty of having friendships with women. I recall him asking those of us at the table if it’s worth having friendships with people of the opposite gender because it so often leads to misinterpretation of intent. He seemed frustrated with the fact that men and woman can’t be “just friends” without it turning weird at some point. This fact seemed to be magnified 10-fold on a Christian College campus.

While I got where he was coming from, I took the opportunity to encourage him when he and I walked out of the cafeteria together and up through campus toward the mail room in a rare moment alone. As much as I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I had an interest in him, and I certainly didn’t want to appear as if I was trying to pursue him (I knew from previous conversations that this was a major turn-off for him… and I certainly didn’t want to push him away!), I really felt like I needed to encourage him in this area. I didn’t want him to shy away from friendships with ladies because he had already taught me so much from our limited friendship in just a few short weeks.

Trying hard to phrase my appreciation in a way that wouldn’t put me in the category of “friendships turned weird”, I told him that I personally really appreciated the fact that he had spent time getting to know me. Because for me, my interaction with him exposed to me a caliber of man that I didn’t even know had existed a few months earlier. I told him that because of the time he spent with me, I now had a much grander list of desires and expectations to put in my treasure trove of the qualities I would hold out for in the man I was going to marry someday. He knew a good chunk of my story at that point, so I hoped he would understand that I was saying that as an encouragement to him, not as an attempt to flatter him for the sake of gaining his affection.

Sitting against the wall in the library I was certain that that day marked the day that our “friendship turned weird” and that I would be case-in-point for the argument Rob had made a few weeks earlier. I started regretting the fact that I ever tipped my hat to J about being interested in Rob. I knew from that point on that Rob would handle me with kid gloves, if not steer clear of me all-together as to not give me the wrong impression. In that half hour my mind had to wander I already began missing my friendship with this guy who had taught me so much in such a short amount of time. Why, oh why could I have not just kept my feelings to myself? Why did life have to be so complicated?

Suddenly I heard footsteps in the stairwell and I looked up to see Rob standing there, apologizing for being late. I thought to myself… “All right, let’s get this over with.”


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