When Love breaks all Laws
Lingering stares, adorable smiles, two different countries
There I was, an all American girl, staring into the eyes of
a Dominican man in the city of Santiago when he told me he loved me.
It all began when I came to visit my best friend Lindsey and
her family who had recently moved to Santiago.
We had a huge itinerary planned to explore all over the country and we
did. However little did I know that
Lindsey and her husband Alberto had a blind double date planned for me the
night I arrived! There we sat, the four
of us, at dinner at one of Alberto’s favorite restaurants Tablon, which faces
Santiago’s Monument. I cannot begin to
tell you how awkward this was! Now would
be a good time to mention that Pablo, my date, doesn’t speak any English and I
am lucky I have a high school level knowledge of Spanish! Alberto did most of the work carrying on the
conversation with Pablo while Lindsey noticed that Pablo sure did smile at me a
lot from across the table. After dinner
things loosened up just a little as Pablo took photos of my friend and me
around the Monument although the language barrier was still apparent.
The following Monday Lindsey and Alberto invited Pablo over
for game night with another couple, Maria and Marco. This was fun but still mainly consisted of
the most adorable smiles and little communication. Oh and yes his smile is adorable…his whole
self is actually rather attractive! My flight was scheduled to leave in two
days but I was thinking about staying longer for the Enrique Iglesias concert
in Punta Cana. This helped bring up
something to talk about this evening. “So you like Enrique Iglesias?” I
responded in the affirmative, Marco then tapped Pablo on the shoulder and
chuckled while making a short comment in Spanish. Thinking that he was making fun of my love of
Enrique, I turned to Alberto and asked what he said, to which Alberto
responded, “He just told Pablo that he should be taking notes.” Marco continued
to ask several questions about myself and loudly stated: “Hey, I’m just trying
to help my friend here.” How
awkward…language barrier or not!
Two days later this group of six of us had a very pivotal
movie night. Of course Lindsey and our
friend, Maria, had arranged the seating just perfectly so Pablo would sit by
me. At this point there was an obvious mutual physical attraction. Who doesn’t want an attractive man to cuddle
with during a movie? So as much as I
like to let the guy make the first move I leaned back on the couch and put my
head on the pillow just enough to give him the opportunity to put his arm
around me but he didn’t. I sat through
the first part of the movie just watching his little hand, and by little I mean
ginormous hand, sitting on his leg and watching it twitch and move towards
mine. Finally he got the guts to just do
it and it went from hand holding to resting our heads together while all
scrunched up on a little couch. Not to
mention all of the other non-verbal communication that occurred from lingering
stares to adorable yet prolonged smiles.
Sometimes when we stare for so long, I get this huge pit in my stomach
and just think, OMG you’re so attractive. After the movie, everyone
strategically left and both of the guys made sure Pablo knew he could stay as
long as he wanted. We managed to carry
on a bit more conversation and shared more really amazing smiles. He asked if he
could take me out to dinner Friday night so we could have the chance to talk more
and get to know one another. Then both the
inevitable and almost unbelievable happened.
He kissed me! I mean he really
kissed me and we enjoyed the rest of our evening. Of course immediately after our make out
session I ran into Lindsey’s room to tell her all about it!
Apparently Island time occurred on Friday when Pablo showed
up 45 minutes late for our date. Only
after the date did I find out Pablo left a message with Alberto that he’d be
late but somehow this slipped Alberto’s mind to tell me. We went to the mall
for some food but he also saw the movie theater in the mall and asked if I’d
rather do that. Since I was no longer
hungry from the butterflies in my stomach and the lateness I decided a movie
would be fine. I could tell this man
didn’t watch many movies with how fidgety he was and he didn’t even know who
the main character, Wolverine, was. He put
his arm around me and held my hand again and we were comfortable on our
date. At least physically comfortable…we
still struggled to make conversation but were slowly progressing. When we got back to Lindsey’s house, you can
only guess what happened when we sat on the couch! We were simply making out when Pablo stopped
suddenly and told me he needed to go, or at least that’s what I thought he said
with my limited Spanish. After a minute he began kissing me
again which followed by another even more sudden stop and a firm statement that
he needed to get home. He stood straight
up, walked to the door, turned in what seemed like an attempt to kiss me
goodnight but stopped himself, and continued for the door. I didn’t feel like
anything inappropriate was going on but I sure felt like Potiphar’s wife when Joseph
fled the scene in biblical times! He
didn’t even say goodbye like he did the previous night. He just walked to the door and left. I was stunned.
Somehow after all this drama, Pablo got the nerve to ask me
out again. Unfortunately he got stuck cleaning
the church this evening so I decided to go and help him. He walked me home holding my hand and kissed
me good night at the door. Alberto’s
aunt was over so I didn’t invite him in and luckily this prevented any more
action from occurring too soon. We sure
didn’t need any more fleeing of the scene!
I was too nervous to address what
had happened the previous night especially with my poor Spanish so I decided to
just let us naturally try and move past it.
On Sunday night Alberto and Lindsey invited Pablo for dinner
at their home. We all had a good time
together and once again Lindsey and Alberto slipped away to their room allowing
Pablo to stay over as long as he’d like.
By now we were getting much better at communicating and realized that we
have the same goals for religion and family.
We also couldn’t deny the physical attraction. However was that enough? Are we compatible as a couple? How can we know when we don’t even speak the
same language? He doesn’t know the small
things that make me who I am. He doesn’t
know the quirks in my personality that have come from my parents. How is our relationship going to work when we
both have families and jobs in different countries? He’s in law school here in Santiago and all
of his siblings reside here. I have a
career in the US and know that I can’t spend the rest of my life in the
Dominican Republic…
There we sat after
dinner trying to make conversation again.
Nicole understands quite a bit of Spanish! If only I knew just a little bit of English. I really really am enjoying spending time
with this girl. She’s beautiful and her
hair, oh her hair! I know she’s
intelligent, she loves to laugh and I know she has the same goals for her
future family as me. I haven’t dated
much but there have been plenty of interested girls. Nicole is just different. Maybe it’s the way she smiles or maybe it’s
the way she laughs. Maybe it’s her
confidence or maybe it’s just her hair!
All I know is since she’s been here; I want to see her every day. So of course after dinner, after we talked, I
leaned in and kissed her. I really like
kissing her. As we stood up when she was
about to walk me to the door I took her in my arms and said “I love you.” I said it in English just for her. I was pretty quiet and unsure if she heard me
so I cupped her delicate face in my hands I said “I Love you Nicole.” She replied with a smile, an awkward giggle
and finished her hug goodbye as I was leaving.
She smiled at me the whole way out as I walked to the elevator. I smiled back but when I got in the elevator
I hung my head low as I knew she didn’t say it back. I looked up to see her still watching me and
gave her a half smile before the elevator doors shut.
“Lindsey! Lindsey!” I
shouted as I stormed into her bedroom.
“What’s the one thing that would freak me out in this situation more
than anything else?” “He dropped the
L-bomb!” What was I supposed to do at
this point? I don’t love him; I don’t
even know him! But I want to get to know
him and I’ve already extended my stay in the country once to do just that. I’m supposed to leave in less than three days
and now I’ve really got to get out of here before this gets any more out of
hand! At least that’s what I thought at
first…after talking to several people I was somehow convinced to extend my stay
again just one more week. I only had to
pay the $200 change fee for my flight and I had no major responsibilities in
Minnesota for the week. Alberto and
Maria were probably my biggest influences in staying. Alberto spoke from experience when deciding
he wanted to marry Lindsey about why I should stay. He told me if there was a chance that this
could be my husband then what’s $200 and one week? Why not use the time wisely and get to know
him even more because you never know if this could be the one. And if it’s not the one, is it really a
struggle to lose $200 and spend another week on a tropical island? Maria was also a strong influence reminding
me that the most important things in a marriage are religion and family and
since we have that, we have a pretty good shot.
I of course know that it takes way more than that for a marriage to be
successful but Maria may have been onto something. I decided to Skype my friend, Rachel, as the
voice of reason as to whether or not to stay an extra week. Rachel didn’t seem to be very reasonable this
evening. She too said if we already know
that our big goals in life are aligned and we have a physical attraction, the
only missing piece is whether or not we are compatible as a couple. Why not take a week to continue working on
that piece in person before going home and continuing the relationship via
email? Honestly, why is no one but me mentioning
the fact that we live in different countries and speak different
languages?! Nonetheless I changed my
ticket once again and extended my stay.
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