I was so embarrassed and I just wanted my bed to swallow me up. I wondered why he would give me his number, but still act like he didn’t know who I was. Was this just to see if he could get me? So childish, I thought. I ignored the text message and dozed off.

The next morning I woke up & saw another text message asking if I was the girl from earlier in the day at the store. I refused to respond. Then a few hours later, I got another text message stating that his colleague had told him about me and was interested in getting to know me. So basically, the number I had was not for the guy I chatted with, but for his colleague. And I thought this whole time, he had purposely put his number in the bag for me. I’m still not sure how the card got into my plastic bag though.

Anyway, I was humbled.

We started talking. But we never found the right time to meet up until about 3 weeks ago when we had planned an outing for the weekend. We were supposed to go axe-throwing. And then rona (Coronavirus, of course) dropped by and our city got locked down. We’ve been stuck Face-timing since then.

Well, until the day at the grocery store. So now you know why I had to dress up just to go to the grocery store.

He’s been super sweet this whole time. He’s sent me food and we’ve had a Face-time dinner, amongst other things. But I’m not sure if I can fall in love with him. He’s just a little………. Oh, he’s here.

Him: “You look beautiful Lola, can I get a hug?”.

Me: Thank you, but not until you let me know why you’re late, I said.

Him: “It’s a really long story. Are you sure you want to know? But first, let me apologize. I’m really sorry for being late”.

Me: Yes, of course, I need to know as your reason may be a good reason to keep this going or end things, I said. “

Him: Alright then. So although I work downtown, I currently live in a neighbouring town and there’s only one long windy road that could get me here. There was a paranoid driver on the street who kept spraying disinfectant liquid on the road before every few moves, through his/her sunroof and refused to pull over to let others pass. It was quite frustrating, but it’s a consequence of the current state of the world. It doesn’t make sense to me though.

Me: I understand now. I would have appreciated a call though.

Him: I know. I just thought if I told you, you would not meet up anymore.

“You can go in now but you need to sanitize your hands and keep shut while inside”, the store associate said.

About 45 minutes later, we got out with full hands and were finally able to speak while he walked me to my car. It was quite an awkward date, but somewhat interesting regardless of us being forcibly mute. We loaded the trunk and then he asked if we could meet up again, perhaps for another grocery store run.

I said no & I still refused to give him a hug. And it had nothing to do with the virus.

TO BE CONTINUED…….

(Check back for the continuation on May 23rd at 1 am ET)