i won't miss sleeping bags
Relationship hurdle #1, done.
I spent from Friday night until Monday afternoon with Brad, but without electricity or running water. Camping with the college best friends and their wives slash very long term girlfriends was an intimidating situation to walk into, but without divulging boring details of every single activity we did, I'll record the Cliff Noted version. Our own private island (with a beach!) that we all canoed to get to, constant campfires, middle-of-the-night paddles out to the lake and the clearest night sky I've seen in months, a cozy tent, unusually amazing camping food, and plenty of booze, herb, and intelligent or hilarious conversation, whichever the mood called for.
Considering the youngest person there besides me was 24 (and had been dating her man for over two years), I felt a little like the new blonde idiot joining The View or the new young newlywed neighbor on Desperate Housewives. But we ended up getting along famously, even if I was 9 years younger than most everyone else there. The men chopped the wood, built the fires for us, and cooked for us first. The women sat and socialized with their boyfriends' fleeces and designer sunglasses on, and even I know how stupidly stupid that sounds but honestly? It was really nice. And I never thought I'd be the girl who would like being called "Babe" instead of my name or who would truly enjoy being pampered and taken care of.
At one point the rest of the girls were starting to get fed up with their guys for their own reasons -- getting impatient, headstrong, snappy, whatever, we were all out in the frigging woods and everyone wanted to play Boy Scout -- at the end of the second night, all the girls were sitting around the campfire and Brad was the only guy there with us as the rest of them listened to the Giants game on the battery-powered satellite radio (a camping essential to football freaks, I guess), letting me put my legs in his lap and my head on his shoulder and take an impromptu nap in front of the fire. When two of them started whispering and then jokingly asked, "Brad, you wanna be our boyfriend?" I'm pretty sure I smiled in my half-sleep.
We were the ones designated least-rushed, so after we canoed back, said our goodbyes, and everyone else left, we waited the extra 45 minutes for the canoe guy to get there. We passed the time drinking our last cans of Budweiser with the car doors wide open and listening to some live Coldplay album before he broke the casual silence first.
"We should have dinner with my parents sometime this week."
I guess I did something right, too.
I spent from Friday night until Monday afternoon with Brad, but without electricity or running water. Camping with the college best friends and their wives slash very long term girlfriends was an intimidating situation to walk into, but without divulging boring details of every single activity we did, I'll record the Cliff Noted version. Our own private island (with a beach!) that we all canoed to get to, constant campfires, middle-of-the-night paddles out to the lake and the clearest night sky I've seen in months, a cozy tent, unusually amazing camping food, and plenty of booze, herb, and intelligent or hilarious conversation, whichever the mood called for.
Considering the youngest person there besides me was 24 (and had been dating her man for over two years), I felt a little like the new blonde idiot joining The View or the new young newlywed neighbor on Desperate Housewives. But we ended up getting along famously, even if I was 9 years younger than most everyone else there. The men chopped the wood, built the fires for us, and cooked for us first. The women sat and socialized with their boyfriends' fleeces and designer sunglasses on, and even I know how stupidly stupid that sounds but honestly? It was really nice. And I never thought I'd be the girl who would like being called "Babe" instead of my name or who would truly enjoy being pampered and taken care of.
At one point the rest of the girls were starting to get fed up with their guys for their own reasons -- getting impatient, headstrong, snappy, whatever, we were all out in the frigging woods and everyone wanted to play Boy Scout -- at the end of the second night, all the girls were sitting around the campfire and Brad was the only guy there with us as the rest of them listened to the Giants game on the battery-powered satellite radio (a camping essential to football freaks, I guess), letting me put my legs in his lap and my head on his shoulder and take an impromptu nap in front of the fire. When two of them started whispering and then jokingly asked, "Brad, you wanna be our boyfriend?" I'm pretty sure I smiled in my half-sleep.
We were the ones designated least-rushed, so after we canoed back, said our goodbyes, and everyone else left, we waited the extra 45 minutes for the canoe guy to get there. We passed the time drinking our last cans of Budweiser with the car doors wide open and listening to some live Coldplay album before he broke the casual silence first.
"We should have dinner with my parents sometime this week."
I guess I did something right, too.