Member-only story
Tinder Butterfly Effect
Dating at level 50+
First date. I entered the café we had agreed to meet at and recognised the profile-picture smile in the afternoon crowd. We friendly hugged hello and he reached for the seat I wanted to take.
Didn’t even ask me where I wanted to sit - my mind shot a judgment. Dear mind, I value your remarque, but I won’t let you sabotage my date.
I autocorrected and asked him if I could take that seat. “Of course!” he replied.
We talked and our eyes locked every now and then, like two pairs of shiny magnets. His were liquid blue-greenish, similar to the shallow waters of the Coh Pee Pee island engraved in my memory. I was back in my twenties again. I kept bubbling words, smiling and tilting my head. He would lean towards me, over the small bistro table, as if to confirm his undivided attention, lowering his head just to melt me with the under-the-eyebrow gaze.
Two hours later, when he walked me to my subway, we hugged goodbye but not as we had hugged hello. I felt the coarseness of his beard, as he turned his lips towards my face and landed the softest kiss on my cheek. The kind of a long-forgotten sweet, delicate press that is too shy to reach for the lips but bold enough to awaken the butterflies. Startled by the sudden sensation of tiny wings flapping inside me, I couldn’t…
