Travel Life & Love

I spent long enough in the wrong relationship to appreciate being alone.

Ok, perhaps that should be “wrong relationships”.

Ah, typical. The classic “girl falls for boy, boy turns out to be a sociopath/narcissist/alcoholic” story. That old chesnut.

I started to question myself and my judge of character and think, “maybe it’s me?” or “perhaps its my fault?”

I’ve never had a problem being alone so lord knows why I fell into these situations and stuck with it til the bitter end. I suppose “stubborn” certainly falls under my characteristics profile.

I don’t mind being alone, I am quite content in my own company and just recently plucked up the courage to travel alone rather than waiting for the next poorly chosen boyfriend to come along and spend my money or waste my time.

I always wanted to travel and I never found someone compatible with my ambition, my goals or my passions. Instead, I always cowed to theirs and pushed mine aside.

I had absolutely no intention of meeting anyone, but then they say that is when it’s most likely to happen…when you’re not looking for it and least expect it.

I had already made up my mind to go traveling, I had purchased my one-way ticket, and I’d handed in my notice at work.

I had gone on a trip to Amsterdam with a friend and just out of curiosity and to kill some time whilst she was preoccupied – I downloaded Tinder.

I can already hear the groans and see people putting their head in their hands.

I know, I know.

Anyway, I wasn’t taking it seriously but out of all the people I matched with, there was one person who caught my eye and was easy to chat with, but I only had a day left.

So I shrugged it off and went home. He messaged me and suggested a phone call. He called me and we spoke for over an hour about all sorts of stuff – movies and food and work and all of that and I was left with a big grin on my face because I couldn’t remember the last time I met a man who actually just wanted to get to know me and asked me questions about MYSELF.

I still didn’t expect much of it but we ended up having another phone call a day or so later. Phone calls turned into facetime and Skype and I realised with a sinking feeling that I really enjoyed talking to this guy.

He joked that I should come and visit and at first I laughed and then I thought, why not? I love any excuse to travel and we had been speaking for over a month which I figured (or rather hoped/prayed) was enough time to figure out whether he was a serial killer.

I took the plunge and booked a flight and I had the most amazing long weekend. We ate lots of food, watched Star Wars, drank beer, cycled around the city and went on a day trip to Rotterdam.

Frustratingly, I felt that this had potential. We got on so well and had such great chemistry but our own ambitions and plans were going in completely opposite directions.

It was very bittersweet to meet someone that I was so compatible with at probably the worse time that I could.

I felt that really and truly this could be the RIGHT person for me if we had the time to let it go further, (you know the butterfly feeling in your stomach and grinning like an idiot sort of feeling) but we were both so committed to our current paths and there was absolutely no wiggle room. I was going away for months, maybe even a year or more, he was working on a career that would take him away as well and I was stunned at how I could manage to have the best and the worst luck at the same time.

The thing is, it took me so long to get to this point that I had dreamt of for so many years, that there was no going back and no giving in, even if it meant passing up on the potential “Mr. Right”.