This is a journal entry about the past. This was my romantic movie moment being kissed in the rain in Europe. And it was NOT in Paris!
I was in a hard place, numb from a controlling relationship situation that destroyed me. I was not emotionally available when dating, and didn't find myself able to connect emotionally. I was trying to date positive people who treated me well after the damage and desolation of emotional abuse had left. I went to Munich to stay with a friend and reconnect with a friend in Nuremberg who seemed romantically interested. Let's say he was part of a love triangle and created drama about me dating his friend. That's why I wondered what was going on with him.
However, on my way to the airport, he told me he was hung up on his ex from 6 months ago, and I freaked out. Short story is he knew I was coming for the weekend and decided he needed to drive to Frankfurt. So my friend in Munich invited me to a house warming party with her. There were two tall men, and I was reeling. That's when I met Olaf. Not the snowman. Or the chancellor of Germany. But he appreciates that everyone knows his name now because of those things.
Olaf gave me his card, which my friend thought was highly sus since German men almost never give out their number when they first meet you. He suggested I ring him next time I was around, and I suggested it could be another ten years. So he suggested we meet up for museum day in Munich since they are free on Sunday. We did that. I went around to museums, actually, before he met me, so we didn't actually go to any of them together. We met up for lunch, then he took me to the Olympic park.
We went up to the radio tower, where Auschewitz is on the horizon. He shared with me the mandatory visits in school, and impressions as a child. It was an emotionally honest, vulnerable moment I noticed and appreciated he was sharing with me, so I took his hand. And that is when we shared an emotional connection. We walked through the park to get the tram back to town, me pulling away while he tried to pull me closer to him. However, at the tram station, in the rain, he caught me. Grabbing me by the lapels of my jacket, he pulled me in and kissed me in the rain.
That was my romantic movie moment in Europe. Nowhere near Paris...
We spent two days together. The friend I had come to visit had me to his place the next night, and showed me around Nuremberg. He was nice, but reserved and passive, and did not give me what I needed. However, he drove me all the way to the Munich airport and bought out and entire German bakery for breakfast to take on the trip.
When I returned home, I skyped with Olaf. He talked about visiting me, but kept putting it off, and I didn't feel serious commitment to it. For me, however, a deal breaker arose. For me, it is a must have to be able to share and discuss with a partner issues and topics of faith and belief. He never even got to know that side of me, because he said he was an athiest and his father was a crazy zealot and he never wanted to talk about it. Deal Breaker.
When I arrived home was when the neurosurgeon really moved into my radar. I had met him at a Christmas party and had insta-chemistry, before my trip to Munich. However, at this time, during lent, he was engaged with his Catholic Latino friend on issues of science and faith, and I was intrigued. Then it was also the time period where he started paying extra attention to him. There are characters in some of my stories that he would recognize some moves of spinning me around in the midst of a club where 23 year olds were fawning over him. Making me blush with how smooth he was in showing me attention.
However, ending things with Olaf was hard. He was the first man I had an emotional connection with. It was a road sign to me that I was healing and ready for something serious again. Even if I was read didn't mean the controlling ex was, and when I tried to move to pursue something with the hot neurosurgeon, the ex caused drama, but that's another story. This story is about the special place in my dating history held by Olaf.
Olaf has one trait which should warrant special notice. Olaf compared me to a car. I know, groan right? Not is you knew what car he compared me to! He did not compare me to a truck or a Ford Mustang. He compared me to a rare, hard to obtain, super expensive, lux roadster. He said that his connection with me was purely emotional, like the feeling when you see that kind of caliber car. Believe me. If any man EVER compares you to any car, this is what you want to be compared to:
When I moved to Germany in 2015, he was in Frankfurt for business, and we got together for coffee. We had been friends on Facebook. He was dating a woman for several years, and I was happy for him. It was years after we had dated, and I had been on my own journey. Last winter he had unfriended me in a purge, but we connected on LinkedIn because he had started a new job.
And why am I thinking about him today? Because I had a dream about him. I don't know what triggered it. In the last week, I have experienced a tremendous amount of negative drama in some writing groups, and on the weekend, a lid came off a can of worms about a man in my house who is fixated on me - in a negative way. I dreamt that I was at some parties with friends with Olaf hanging out. Totally caz. I messaged him today, and he thought it was strange because we haven't seen each other in ages. Any of my plans to visit Munich to connect with people have been thwarted. However, he did say that I wasn't such a far drive away in the car.
I want to see him. The fantasy of dating him is tempting, because of our physicality. However, it doesn't change that we probably shouldn't be involved romantically. He didn't understand me when I made that decision the first time, and that's hard. It's hard to see him and feel that chemistry with him. The chemistry was insane, NGL. I'd be open to having that discussion with him now. I really would like to have him as a friend because he is a positive person, and I need more of those in my life.
