June 24, 2023

Late last year, I started dating James. He had been my friend for seven months. He was one of those people who spill emotional support when you are in an emotionally dry place. I always looked forward to seeing him, and hanging out when our friend group gathered together.

I am a high school teacher, and this last school year was rough. It was my second year teaching full-time, and I started the year burned out. James would ask me how I was when I saw him, or via a message, and I would vent. I enjoyed telling him about my life, and hearing about his. And he had started to become one of “my people” – a source of emotional support for me. Our foundation of friendship turned into my heart being pulled toward this man as if he were a magnet. 

I asked him to hang out with me, one-on-one / outside our friend group, one night after I was exhausted from a late open-house/ meet the parents night at our school. We didn’t even start hanging out until eight p.m. We ate outside – it was warm for an early November night. I cannot describe the way it felt like our conversation flowed, the way it felt like my level of wit and my ability to read emotions and people was met or surpassed by his, and the energy and dynamic that that brought to the conversation. I had never experienced anything like it. I was drawn toward this man in a way I had not been toward anyone else before, partly because it felt like he was emotionally drawn toward me as well. That night felt magical. Hanging out with him one-on-one was very different than hanging out with him in a group. I felt alive by the way he lavished attention on me. He hardly knew me, and yet I had met a man who could read me like an open book – with just a few blurry words and phrases here and there. I felt a sense of astonishment at his emotional intelligence and empathy, and the way it felt like we emotionally connected, when I do not normally feel that with most men. We talked until 11:30 p.m.,until finally it was too late for me to ignore the time and the fact that I would have to be up early the next day any longer. 

That was the start of everything. That night, I fell in love. Love takes a long time to develop, so I will say that I at least started falling in love. I felt the enchantment of love along with the brain chemicals of romance grab onto my heart, and that night, I was hooked. There was no going back for me.