Matt picked me up a few days after we’d gone to Taco Bell on a tour of my new town. I got into his car, and on the short 5-minute drive to Perkins, it was a strange silence in the car, even though there was music on the radio. I’d gotten dressed up, worn a nice pair of jeans and a cute sweater and heeled boots. Matt, also, seemed to have dressed up from when I’d seen him earlier in our research lab that day. 

We were sitting at the traffic light, a mere 30 seconds away from the Perkins parking lot once it turned green. The music in the car was drowned out by the click-clack of the turn signal. Then Matt spoke:

“So…are we going to dinner as friends…or something more?”

I could have died. My already racing heart decided it wasn’t going fast enough after he asked the question. All the blood had rushed to my head and all I heard was a buzzing sound as I tried to think. 

As I sat there, staring at what had to be the world’s longest red light, I didn’t know what to say. Matt waited patiently for my answer (spoiler, he got really good at waiting patiently for me). 

I mean, does Matt want to be something more? Why would he ask if he did though? He probably just wants to be friends, and doesn’t want to make it awkward by me thinking we might be on a date when we’re not. That makes sense. The light was still red. 

But, the other side of my brain argued, why would he ask if he didn’t want to date you? Maybe he just wants to make sure you’re on the same page as him. As I was internally debating, the light turned green. Great. Now I was definitely running out of time and really didn’t know what to say. 

I could make an argument for both why he did and didn’t want to date me since he asked that question. If he wanted to date me, why would he have asked if this was a date? But if he didn’t want to date me, why would he have even brought it up? 

What if I said yes, I wanted to date him, and he didn’t want to date me? Awkward. But what if I said no, and he’d wanted to date me? Also awkward.

Matt was in the middle of the left turn, just a short 30 seconds away now from turning right into the parking lot of Perkins. I was running out of time and still didn’t know what to say. Why couldn’t the light have stayed red? At this rate, my heart might explode from the pressure before we event park. 

Maybe I had been stressed about thinking about if he wanted to date me, or maybe, just maybe, I’d been stressed about if I wanted to date him. 

From the couple of months I’d spent with him, he seemed like a really nice guy, loved his family, was so sweet, and made me laugh and so happy to be around him. I’d never dated anyone before, I didn’t know how this worked. I was waiting for my Prince Charming…how would I know who he was? If I got involved with someone here, my odds of moving back home drastically decreased. But Matt seemed like such an amazing guy. 

Guys had never been interested in me. Only one guy ever asked me for my number (turns out that I found out in chemistry lab that we’re allergic to each other), and since he swore like a sailor, I asked him “Why?”. He never really talked to me after that. 

But Matt was different. He made me feel happy, I liked talking to him, and I could spend 5 hours with him on a tour of a tiny town and it feel like only 30 minutes. Maybe my brain was just blaming my indecision on wondering why he asked me that question, and not on my hesitance on wondering why someone who seemed like such an awesome guy would want to date me. 

Matt switched on his right turn signal. It was now or never. I was quite literally running out of time.

“I’m good with it being something more if you are…”

Matt looked over, smiled at me, and said something along the lines of “It’s a date then.” (Don’t ask me what he actually said, I was way too panicked about finally answering him to remember word for word what he said – I got the gist though). 

And that was that, a couple weeks later in November 2021, Matt and I were officially dating. And while I had been panicked being put on the spot and asked what I wanted to do, thinking back on it, I think I was more amazed he wanted to date me. I loved spending time with him and talking and getting to know him. He was marking so many qualities off of my “future husband checklist” and the fact that it was getting closer to reality made me so giddy with excitement. 

I called my parents after Matt had dropped me off from our official Perkins date. I told them all about how I panicked at the question (they only laughed) and how I’d finally answered him, and about everything we’d talked about. They said he sounded like a good guy and they were excited for me. I was, too…was Matt the guy for me? What was God’s plan? I’d just have to wait and see. 

If you missed Part 2 and Part 3, you can find them here! I’ll be back next Saturday with Part 5. As always, leave any comments below!

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