I was on holiday with friends, kind of trying to get over the unstable relationship to an ex and had actually started flirting/getting mutually interested in a guy in my hometown. I was playing this other guy's suggested songs on my laptop during the first days of the holiday, thinking something might come out of that and was anyway happy and actually proud for thinking about other guys. So I went with my friends on the beach the 2nd day of the holiday, he worked at a restaurant by the beach and he knew one of my friends a bit. She described him actually before we went there and I was sceptical (I think all she said was that he had a pony tail and was single, but for some reason I started to speculate). We went to the beach restaurant, and as soon as I see him I am totally trying to avoid him, thinking he resembles my ex too much, both in looks and manners. He takes my order and I am polite, but a bit cold. When I am out swimming he goes around asking my friends for my name and tells them he fancies me! I hear about this afterwards... Anyway, he serves my drinks and very soon starts to ask me if I will go out with him later. He is not exactly pushy, but he is a fast mover and I get a bit irritated. And it is almost like he does not pay attention to what I am saying, because he continues to ask me out even though I had just said no. He goes on telling my friends how beautiful I am and so on. I get a bit embarrassed, I also think it is a bit funny. I am not sure weather or not he is joking, or when he is. Anyway he pursues me whenever he has time off from serving. Again and again I reject him. He leaves, but then I start to think; should he not come back? and I miss the uppertunity at least. But I still think us getting involved is a bad idea and have no intention of going out with him.

The next day I get at little impressed by him. Even for all the rejection I gave him the day before, he still is very confident about pursuing me, and also kind; I feel he does respect my feelings. I can tell he really really fancies me. I admit to myself I get a little kick out of posing for him (which is easy because I am only wearing a bikini, on a beach, in sunshine). He has a way of looking at me that reminds me of my ex but feels really good. He gets almost shy to watch me but still does it all the time, making up excuses to pass me by to look at me. He is talking more to my friends than me, telling them I should be with him and soon we will go out. My friends all think it is a great joke, assuming I am not after anything. The whole thing makes me laugh for real. I get more confidant from all the attention and feel affected by him. Still I feel that it is a bad idea that I should date him, and tells him so, thinking it is final. It just seem too risky to meet up with this stranger somewhere I don't know, anyway I also have plans with my friends. I hate that fact that I have to reject him, but I must do it now, before he gets his hopes up! The fact that he is into me is the the joke of the party, especially by those older among us who see both me and him (7 years younger than me) as really young. I laugh with them, hearing even more things he told them about me. I feel a bit caged because I AM interested, sort of, and this way of using my friends to get to me is slowly working, but I don't want to show that to my friends, or him.

The following day I do not go to the beach in the morning, but I join my friends in the evening for a show at the restaurant that I really want to se. I have evening make-up and a nice dress on, it is casual but still more dressed up than beachwear. I sense it when we get there that he has been waiting for me the whole time and that there is a certain wow-factor. He pays me a lot of compliments and I really like his attention. But I am not used to dating right in front of my friends, it feels embaressing and I am extremely ambivalent. He must sense that he is getting somewhere because he starts saying things like; "We will get a drink when I get off from work, right?". And I am like no, he pushes and then I say maybe. All of a sudden I have said yes, but I will not leave with him in front of all my friends! Finally, 1 1/2 hours after his shift is over and most of my friends have gone back to the hotel, I leave with him. He is super anchious and not understanding my need to be discreet, but when I tell him he does seem to get it.

He gets me something to drink nearby (which calms me, because I have no sense of direction and tend to get nervous when going new places with new people). I realize he is really very handsome and charming, but also I do not trust him completely. We talk about work and "innocent stuff" for a while. Then all of a sudden he says; "That was nice, but why don't you kiss me?" I can't really explain why I don't want to kiss him, because I am smitten with him. Still, he is very patient about rejection, it does not seem to affect him much and he seems very much to know what he is doing (he later told me he is never usually that bold with women!). Somehow he manages to relax me more. I sort of just slip into the realization that I am attracted to him for much the same reasons as I did my ex, but suddenly that does not seem such a bad idea after all because I feel taken care of. And then he asks if I want to sit beside him, I sit halfway with my back to him and then I sort of fall into his lap. All I can think of is how good it feels, and the sound from the ocean and the quieted sounds around us. He touches my hair which for some reason feels very special. When he leans over to kiss me there I accept and I make up my mind to trust him, just like that.

I got a couple of days with him before I had to go back, namely the night I kissed him, then a day at the beach + a whole night sleepover and a beach day with short evening just before I left. We have been on Skype ever since and are planning both for him coming here and I going back there. Everyday I like him a little more... Actually, I think I love him. In a way, he is like I always wished my ex would be. Certainly no drama. And of course he is also his very own self, with stuff that surprise and delights me all the time. He told me afterwards that I too look very much like his ex (he had been more or less single for 6 years when we met); only of course I love him better than she ever did, appreciate him more etc. and it makes me kind of proud. I am not sure if that sounds romantic at all, and it is not like we are talking about this a lot (in fact we are both hurt from those relationships and prefer to keep talking about them to a minium), but I really do feel like we are healing each other. And becoming each other's Better Version, and very upfront and honest with each other from the start, and more or less planning a future before we even got out of bed!

We did not really date; we just were together from the moment I let him kiss me and that was it really. Just like: yes. this is it.

And my husband (who knew it all from the beginning) thinks the world of him, the two of them really dig each other and tells each other on the phone that they are lucky to have me, which I think is super cute and I feel so very loved.