To wear your heart on your tweet

One afternoon I came out and saw a guy standing outside my gate talking on the phone. As I got closer I realised he was pretty good-looking.

"Uhh… who are you looking for?" I asked him.

"I'm here to pick up Bethany".

I remember thinking something along the lines of “Whenever a cute guy appears here, it’s not for me”, which actually makes no sense.

“Come and sit inside, I’ll tell Bethany you’re here” I said.

We sat down in the couch outside my house. I may have mentioned before that in Indonesia, people who I have just met tend to ask A LOT OF questions. It feels like an interrogation sometimes, I think this time was the first time I was on the other end of the interrogation. For some reason I needed to know everything about him

His name was Rafi (fake name). He was 21 (I know, I know younger man), worked, studied and volunteered. He seemed so hard-working. He was very different to my last boyfriend and I think that was what was so attractive about him.

When he eventually left, I remember feeling sad that he was going so soon and secretly watching him leave from the front window. As soon as he left I looked for his facebook to find out if he had a girlfriend (I know this is pathetic but I'm just being honest).

We organised to work with the charity he was involved with and one night we had dinner with him and some of the other volunteers. I was trying to deny to myself that I liked him but the time I had spent deciding on what to wear and doing my make-up said otherwise. I guess I don’t often put on make-up to go to Warung Ijo.

We met a few times after that but I wasn’t really sure if he was interested. I found his twitter. Finding someone’s twitter account without them knowing is like having the power to read minds. And it did clear up a few things:

 Yes, he actually posted that on his twitter. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. Actually I think if that expression was translated into Indonesian it would become "to wear your heart on your tweet". 

But finding out that he liked me was much easier than getting him to admit it. We met up about a week after I found this tweet. He was still weirdly shy around me but I was so happy to be near him. That day I watched him working with the street kids from the charity. More and more I was seeing how much of a good person he was. But still he never acted like he was interested. A few days after that, frustrated that nothing had happened. I took matters into my own hands and replied to his tweet about me. After that, we could finally line up our first date.

So our first date was approaching. He had given me the two options of "poetry reading with my friends" or something else. I opted for something else as the idea of the first date being with his friends was shocking. I don't quite know why he invited me to go somewhere with his friends but maybe he was just nervous and wanted his friends there for moral support? I soon realised that he was completely inexperienced with girls and I'd have to be patient.

The day of the big date approached.  I was seriously nervous. I was ready to leave about half an hour before he was supposed to pick me up (which is pointless in Indonesia as the guy is usually late anyway). 

When he arrived I relaxed a little. The date was quite good. He took my to eat bakso (Indo-style meatballs) which is one of my favorite foods. We got to know each other. We discussed deep things. We went cruising around. We ate ice cream. It actually felt beautifully promising.

When he dropped me off at my house he gave me a goodbye handshake which was quite weird but adorable I guess. Later he tweeted "I still can't believe what I just done tonight. . .haha". 

I guess this is what a modern day love story is. He didn't communicate with words to me. I knew how he was feeling through his tweets. He was too shy to tell me what he was thinking but it was no problem to tell the world in 140 characters or less. 

With him being such a multi-tasker, it took a week to get a second date. To me the second date is a make or break type moment. Most of the guys I have dated haven't gotten to the third date because I think you can tell if it's going anywhere by the second date.

Rafi came to my house, we went out to eat and then came back to my house. I invited him inside to chat. He initially refused to go in as he was "too nervous to meet my friends". After convincing him my housemates weren't at home, I wanted to give him a tour of the house.

Earlier that day, a bookshelf I had bought and (attempted to) assemble myself had fallen apart. I told him the story and opened the door to show him my bookshelf. He kind of hovered in the doorway.

“You can come in,” I said.

“I’m not allowed to go into a girls bedroom” he replied seriously.

“Huh? Who told you that?” I replied. “It’s just to look at a broken shelf…”

He still refused to come in.

“Uh… I have to go home now, my mother is home alone. I need to accompany her.” He said.

“Okay, no worries” I said feeling kind of frustrated, I’d waited a whole week to see him and we were only together for about 30 minutes.

So I opened the gate to let him out.
"Text me to let me know you got home safe" I told him as he drove off.

Two hours later he messaged me to tell me he was home. Obviously he wasn’t worried about keeping his mum company as there's no way it could have taken two hours for him to get home. It seemed that we both saw that things weren't great and that maybe we were too different to make things work. It was fine really, we had only been on two dates, we weren't really invested in it.

But it didn't end simply. Instead he ended it with the most hurtful words anyone has ever said to me:

Those words were so awful to me and made me so angry that I felt that I needed to do something horrible back. I decided that I didn't care what he was thinking anymore. I wanted it all to end. 

I unfollowed him on twitter.