{Dating Diaries} A Boy in a Bar part 3

We’ve finally reached the conclusion of this mini series! (LOL) If this is your first time to hear of this, you need to catch up on part 1 and part 2.

After reading French guy’s email, I replied to him, and a few hours later, I got this text:

Hi, it’s *insert name here*! I went out to buy a phone card (and eat), so now you have my number! I’m back at home. I also hope for better weather tomorrow!

It was raining that day. The “and eat” portion, by the way, was an internal joke, which made me realize that this guy had a sense of humor. I like that in a guy. So I replied to his text and we texted back and forth for a bit, concluding that we would meet around lunch the next day.

When I woke up the next day, however, I had a bad cough. So I said:

Looks like the sun is out, but I seem to have caught a cough. But I can still come if you don’t mind my froggy voice.

He replied with:

Too bad that you got a cough. For me that is not a problem, so of course I’m still okay to see you and to hear your new voice. 🙂  I hope it does not hurt and will stop soon.

We met at the harbourfront station. I was actually worried I wouldn’t recognize him in the daylight; silly me. He bent down as if to kiss me, but I raised my hand to stop him, protesting, “I’m sick!” And besides, there were so many people around and this was sort of a first date! Who does that? These French indeed!

We rode the monorail to Sentosa island and got off at the first stop, where Universal Studios is. We weren’t planning to go in, I just showed him around. Then he asked where we would eat and I realized that lunch had completely slipped my mind, I was that nervous! We ended up at Chili’s.

Over lunch we talked about all sorts of things. When he mentioned climbing a mountain in a certain year, I found a chance to find out his age without flat-out asking. I said, “Wow, so long ago, were you in high school then?” He replied, “I was 11.” So I did the math figured out that he was a year older than me. Yeah, I know. Me and my detective skills.

After lunch I showed him the Universal Studios globe so he could take pictures with his DSLR. Then we headed towards Siloso Beach. It’s my favorite spot on the island because I love beaches. He said he did too. After he took some photos, we sat on the sand and marvelled at the view, the wind whipping through our hair. This is one of my favorite pastimes and it was only much much later that I remembered having put down “picnic on the beach” as the answer to the ideal first date question.

“It’s about to rain,” he pointed out, gesturing at the dark clouds.

“Can’t you ask Mr. Sun to keep it at bay?” I pleaded. “You’re close, right?” I was referring to the fact that part of his name literally meant the word sun.

“Yes, and he told me, ‘I am sorry, but look at those clouds, they’re beyond my powers. You have to look for shelter,’” he laughed, changing his voice a bit to be in character as the sun.

So we found a beach bar which wasn’t so occupied because it wasn’t night yet and sat down on some plastic chairs.

Now what? I wondered to myself. First dates are always so awkward, made all the more so for me because I hadn’t been on one in years.

“So what apps do you like to use on your phone?” he suddenly asked. He must have noticed me twirling my phone in my hands. A nervous habit.

“Ummm…” I wasn’t sure how to answer. I wasn’t about to tell him “Facebook,” even though that was the truth. I didn’t want him to add me there. Too soon.

I opened my phone and quickly scrolled through my apps. “IMDB!” I said excitedly, glad to have found a safe answer.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It means Internet Movie Database,” I explained. “It’s an app where you can look up movies, see their ratings, reviews, and other info like actors and quotes and trivia.”

He asked me to show it to him, so I opened the app and gave him a tour. “Let’s say you wanted to look up… Inception. So we search for that. Here it is. It’s rated 8.8. I believe that makes it one of the top 250 movies of all time.”

“What are the other movies on this top 250 list?” he wondered.

So I clicked on the link to show him, and together we scrolled down the list, offering information on which movies we had seen, reviewing those that we had and explaining the story in case one of us had seen it while the other had not. It was certainly a very interesting date conversation as well as a quick way to gage compatibility. We liked most of the same movies.

The rain still hadn’t stopped by the time we had gotten to #250 on the list. As we sat in the cold, watching the rain pouring down in sheets, he gazed at me and I could not help but notice that his eyes were the same color as the ocean. And this time when he leaned over to kiss me, I didn’t protest anymore.

Earlier, we had bought tickets to the Songs of the Sea, my favorite show which involves laser lights and fireworks. It was a rain or shine show, so even though the rain still hadn’t stopped by 7pm, we still had to go. I had seen this show 10 or so times already, but this was the first time I would watch it in the rain.

We were given raincoats to wear. At first we placed our hands inside the coats to keep them dry but then he stuck one of his hands out so he could hold my mine, and even though I was shivering from the cold outside, I felt warm inside.

He enjoyed the show too, and after we left, we headed to Vivo City, the nearby mall. We looked around, and when I saw the National Geographic shop, I told him, “You like museums, right?” and led him in, but it wasn’t a museum.

It had a gallery of world famous photos, though, and after looking through all them, we came upon a world map on the wall and he asked me where I lived in the Philippines, so I pointed it to him.

“It’s your turn to show your place,” I said.

“You know where Paris is right?” he replied.

“I’m so bad at geography, I really don’t know,” I confessed ruefully.

“Eet’z at zee center of zee world!” he said in aghast. “I’m surprised zat you know so much but not zees.” (I did mention that I love his accent, right?)

I managed to find it, thank goodness. He pointed out the place he grew up in, and the other cities he had been to, including Boston, where he had worked for a while, which explained why he knew how to speak English quite well.

We eventually headed towards the MRT. “Where are we going now?” he asked.

“I’m going home,” I said. “I have work tomorrow.”

We rode the train together, but he had to get off first. “Au revoir, monsieur,” I said.

“Au revoir,” he replied. “Or _____ (insert indiscernable French phrase here). Which means see you tomorrow. Maybe?”

“Maybe,” I smiled.