Travel & Romance: An Unromantic Story of Love | Inspiring Story #11

When people hear our story, they think it’s romantic.

Alex quit his job, sold his stuff, pulled out of his dream restaurant in Germany and the next day, booked a flight to Mexico to convince me that we were right for each other.  Three months later, I quit my job and am planning to hitchhike and boat-hitch on a sail yacht to be with him in Germany.

This might sound like a romantic love story.  But it’s not actually a love story.  It’s more a story of trusting yourself.  Love, just like life, is what you make of it, if you can trust in yourself.

Call This Romantic?

I met Alex on Tinder. I know.  When people ask us how we met, we cringe.

I’m from a New Zealand Samoan family.  Dating isn’t a thing.  You gradually get ‘together’ with a friend, and then one day, they just never leave your house. Or, if you are bold and connect with someone at a house party,  you tell them you want to be with them. And if they feel the same way, boom! You’re basically married. Overly simplified, I know.  There are a lot of feelings involved in a developing relationship…

Like the initial butterflies, the nervousness that comes from the excitement when you see your new love.  Sometimes we let those feelings morph into something more insidious: doubt and fear.  If we let those two emotions take root, we lose our ability to trust in ourselves, and it becomes hard to see which direction we should take.  And if we can’t see our own path, the road can take us to a life we don’t necessarily want.  

My story is riddled with fear and doubt and I am working hard to overcome it.   This is my story …

Meeting Alex

Alex stood in the middle of the train platform.  People flowed around him, a colourful school of fish, making a current toward the exit.  At that first sight, I saw in him what I had already guessed and what he would later turn out to be: someone who didn't follow the crowd.  Someone who moved to the beat of their own drum. Someone like me.  

We’d already been messaging each other for a month. We were both different to the other high-flying profiles on Tinder; all the makeup and the starched collars.  That wasn't really us.  I knew he was special - different, adventurous, outgoing, and open.  I needed someone who could keep up with me.  Could that be Alex?

We’d talk about our plans for the future.  I wanted to leave Germany.  I was teaching at an incredibly traditional school, which was more like an exam factory.  The students weren’t very receptive to my creative way of teaching, preferring to be told answers instead of figuring them out.  I was reprimanded for including activities and group work in my teaching.  It was not the place for me.  I wanted out!

Alex told me he was struggling in Germany too.  He missed the excitement of his university life south of the border.  We both felt our lives stagnating, trying to fit ourselves into a traditional box neither of us liked very much.   Alex wanted to be free to surf and travel, coincidentally, to the same places I wanted to travel to.  I thought we might go in the same direction for a while.  So, it was time to meet in the flesh. 

My first meeting with Alex felt so right.  We’d walked from the train station to his place and spent the afternoon together.  We watched movies and laughed.

By the end of the night, our lips met for the first time.  An electric shock ran through my whole body.  From my lips to my toes, I felt it everywhere.  That kiss left me a little weak and shaky, something I had never felt before.

I tried to take Alex to bed.  Something I had never tried to do on the first night (It usually took a month to woo me).  Alex later claimed he sent me home because he knew I was special and  he wanted more than just a one-night stand.  I think it's because all the beer bottles from the night before were stashed in his bedroom.

When I got home, I deleted Tinder.  I had found the man I wanted to spend my time with …  at least while I was in Germany.

Alex Has A Dream ... continued