It's amazing.......

It was early evening on the following Saturday, roughly about three day into my ‘seeing’ Lawrence, and I was lying on my sofa like a lovelorn teenager rereading the last hour’s worth of text messages from my beloved who was away until the following Thursday evening on a training course in Putrajaya.

Lawrence: What are you doing? L xxx

Me: Am trying to read that book I picked up from your bookshelf last Wednesday: Love in the time of Cholera. Not exactly last paced is it? How’s the course going? G

Lawrence: Course is OK, peoples nice, am missing you though. What manner of madness has possessed you to read Love in the time of Cholera? You’ll hate it. L xxx

Me: Because it reminds me of you in that it’s boring, long-winded and is yellow at the edges!

Lawrence: Ha! That is so mean!

Me: I know! But seriously I am reading book because of you. Now that we are officially dating I feel ought to put some effort into making myself appear as clever as you are. The last thing you need is for all your mates to think you’re got so desperate that you’ve started down! Really wish you were here! G

Lawrence: Ahhhh...! How sweet! I wish I were there too! And what do you mean exactly by ‘dating down’? There’s only one of us dating down here mate and that’s you! Seriously, though, could not be prouder of you. Can’t wait to show you off to my friends!

As I finished rereading Lawrence final text a huge grin somehow bolted itself to my face and was refusing to budge. In a deliberate attempt to get rid of it, I thought about the piles of work that I need to complete.

Finally I pulled out all the stops and thought about the fact that I haven’t been to the pool because of all the evening time I had been spending my time with Lawrence and how my midriff was feeling a little bit ‘looser’ than normal undoubtedly because of all the food I had been eating with Lawrence and still the grin remained. There was no doubt about it. This grin was staying put.

Nothing had been the same since our kiss on the night of our first date. Walking up fully clothed in my arms underneath a duvet on his sofa the following morning I knew I had just experienced the single best night of my life: and the contrast between my night with Lawrence and the million one-night stands that I had shared with the-wrong-kind-of-boy could not have been more marked. We had talk. We had laughed. But above all we had connected on a more fundamental level than I had ever experienced.

Feeling as though I needed to mark my arrival into the world of fully functioning adult relationships, I had carefully extracted myself from Lawrence’s limbs, borrowed his front door key and sneaked out to the Starbuck at Plaza Damas where I picked up two hot chocolates and couple of muffins. Just as he was stirring from his sleep I presented my purchases to him and had been more than a little started when he gave me the oddest of looks. My imagination had gone into overdrive as I reasoned that perhaps a surprise breakfast of hot chocolate and muffin might have been ex-boyfriend John signature move and now he was thinking about him. Apologising profusely for stirring up memories from the past I had been about to get rid of the offending items when Lawrence had explained that he was looking at me oddly because I was being so nice to him. Perplexed at this complexity of thought processes I let out a sigh of relief and told him it was no big deal. I sat down on the sofa next to him, turned the TV over to one of the music channels and encouraged Lawrence to start eating and as we slurped hot chocolate, scoffed down muffin and took it in turns to perform a variety of comical reconstruction of R&B music videos, I felt sure that I was on to a good thing.

Back at my own place sometimes in the evening I had been about to go to bed when I had received a text from Lawrence that read: ‘Hey you! Am off to bed just wanted to say goodnight and a huge thank you for the most fun that I’ve had in a long while. You are amazing. Sleep tight. L xxx.’ I replied right away (sometimes along the lines that I too had enjoyed myself) and for the rest of the week that followed a constant stream of warm, funny and intimate messages bounced between his phone and mine without a single call taking place until, on the following Saturday morning when desperate to see him again, I had called him up directly and asked him out on a second date.

I had suggested all manner of restaurants and bars that they could go to but Lawrence politely rejected each of my suggestions and instead offered up one of his own: the cinema.

Now after couple of weeks of dates covering everything from art exhibition to folk artists in the city (plus a week-long separation) I was now well beyond ‘like’ with Lawrence and though I insisted on baulking at the word ‘love’ whenever my subconscious threw up the concept late at night, at the same time there were moments when I couldn’t help but conclude that if what I was feeling looked, smelled and tasted like ‘love’ then chances were that it probably was.

And now that he was away the clarity of thought that separation sometimes brings persuaded me that there was one last hurdle left before I could relax fully into this new are of my life. Flicking up my phone I typed out the following message: ‘I think it’s time you meet my group of friends.’ And pressed send.

Till then, G’nite