I met someone new recently. He was lovely in his messages. Really open and engaging and it felt like from the first message that we’d really get along. But we did continue messaging for quite some time. I don’t recall now if that was down to my schedule or if it was because he has a tendency to take things a little slower. Either way I didn’t mind.

Eventually we did meet up for a coffee. He told me about a bonkers date that we went on recently with a couple and I told him of a crazy experience I’d had. One of things I like most about him is how easy it is for him to lean into when he finds things funny. I said something and I swear to god, he actually slapped his thigh laughing. It was adorable. I couldn’t get enough watching him laugh.

I also truly believe that he’s the sort of person who, if things hadn’t worked out between us in a sexual capacity, that he’d be a wonderful friend to have in my life. A lot of other people (men) say they’d happy to be just friends and I’ve never believed any of them until this moment. And I wanted there to be something between us. I wanted our friendship to just naturally lead into doing sex things with each other.

After coffee, as we walked out to the car park, he gave me a very respectful hug and I didn’t know what to make of that. I understood that he didn’t want to put pressure on me in that moment and instead we messaged afterwards to see how we both felt about each other. We were both on the same page. But unfortunately, I went out of town shortly after that and then he did too and followed that with some incredibly busy times.

We didn’t meet up again for another month and this time we met in a pub garden and caught up with each other for several hours. Even though it had been awhile it also felt like no time had passed. I liked his easy smile, his sense of humour. That we both complained about certain things in the same way. I liked hearing about his journey into being poly and ENM. The way he talked about not really fitting in with different labels, the safety checks he uses with other people. His safety checks typically lasted a lot longer than mine but I liked that about him. There was no rushing in and getting it all wrong. Things are steady with him, respectful, easy.

After we finished our drinks, we said our goodbyes and a funny thing happened. I stepped in for a hug and ended up looking up at him in this way that felt incredibly intimate. Like we were going to kiss. But I said oh, that feels quite awkward and sudden and he gave me another quick squeeze before saying something like, I’m not going to make it awkward. And it wasn’t. I was honestly just really happy that he’s the sort of person who can just diffuse something like that, make me comfortable again.

Another meeting with this kind, funny man and he put a massive smile on my face. Even with no kiss as yet!