Date #2
The next time I saw Patrick was at another conference. This one was the World Discipleship Summit in Texas, July 2012. The summit was a conference like the one in Chicago but on a grander scale. Grand as in the campus conference, singles conference, leadership conference, teen conference, youth and family conference etc. of our fellowship came together from all over the world to meet and worship together. We had a ton of classes, services, concerts, dances, fellowship—you name it—all happening at the same time. It was amazing and life changing.
Earlier that summer, Pat had asked me in advance to go on a date during the summit. I was looking forward to it and texted him once I landed in Texas. You’re probably wondering why I texted him when I landed if I didn’t like him. Good question, because I still don’t know. I can only speculate about what my thought process was. I think a part of me was curious about what could happen, maybe there was something there? I also think I liked the fact that he was paying attention to me and was interested in having a relationship but not necessarily romantically. I was open to see where our friendship would go, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Maybe I was trying to deceive myself; maybe I was starting to like him more than as a friend? When the time for the date arrived, we were late because I couldn’t find his hotel. He found me, and because we were late he was walking super-fast. I didn’t like that too much because I was getting a little left behind.
The date took place on a hotel rooftop, this was a very memorable date. From what I can remember Patrick was very forward. He asked me what my love language was. My love language is physical touch, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling him that, so he dragged it out of me by asking a lot of questions. Once he got it out of me, he started to joke around and touch me on the arm and shoulder a lot. Well, that was not funny to me; was he trying to get me to like him by touching me? I understood that we were on a date and should be getting to know each other, but not like that we weren’t. I left that date feeling as though, I think he likes me and I don’t know if I am there. Now I really didn’t know how I felt about him.