I have this habit of rehearsing conversations in the shower. I win every argument, I’m charming, I’m witty, and I never stutter. But the moment I step out the door to meet someone new, that confidence usually drains away with the bathwater. I’m good at typing—really good. Give me a keyboard and I can build a world. Put me face-to-face with a stranger, and I forget what to do with my hands.
So, when Mark suggested the public library for our first meet-up, I didn't panic. Actually, I exhaled. A bar is too loud; a coffee shop feels like an interview. But a library? A library has rules. You have to be quiet. If we ran out of things to say, we could just pretend to read. It was the perfect safety net for someone like me.
We had been talking for about three weeks. It wasn't an explosive start—no fireworks or grand declarations. It was just… easy. We found each other on nikadate, mostly because I liked his profile. He didn't have a shirtless gym selfie. Instead, he had a picture of his cat sitting on a stack of sci-fi novels and a bio that simply said, "I'm better at listening than talking." That was the hook. I needed a listener.
When I walked into the lobby, I was five minutes early, but he was already there, examining the community notice board. He looked exactly like his photos, maybe a bit taller, with a slightly crooked nose that made him look approachable. I was wearing my "brave" sweater—the red one—but I still felt the urge to turn around and run.
"Hey," I whispered, approaching him.
He turned, and his smile wasn't a practiced grin. It was slow, a bit nervous too. "Hey. You’re real."
"I think so," I said, and immediately regretted how weird that sounded.
We didn't hug. We just kind of nodded and started walking toward the fiction section. The air smelled of vanilla and aging paper, a scent that instantly lowered my heart rate. For the first twenty minutes, we barely spoke. We just walked down the aisles, pulling out books, showing them to each other, and putting them back. It was a silent conversation. He pulled out a dense history of salt; I showed him a graphic novel about space pirates.
There was a moment in the biography section where I reached for a book on the top shelf. I’m short, so I was struggling on my tiptoes. Without making a big deal of it, he just reached over, grabbed it, and handed it to me. No "let me help you, little lady" vibe. Just practical assistance.
"Thanks," I mouthed.
Then, the inevitable clumsy moment happened. I turned too quickly, my bag swung around, and I knocked a display of bookmarks onto the floor. The sound was like a gunshot in the silence. Everyone looked. My face burned so hot I thought I might actually ignite the books around me.
I scrambled to pick them up, terrified. Mark didn't pretend he didn't know me. He didn't laugh at me. He just knelt down and helped me gather the laminated strips of cardboard.
"I think we offended the librarians," he whispered, handing me a bookmark with a kitten on it.
"I should probably be banned," I whispered back, my hands shaking a little.
"Then I'll get banned too," he said.
It wasn't a movie line. It was just a nice thing to say to someone who was clearly mortified. We checked out our books—he actually borrowed the salt history book—and walked out into the cold afternoon air.
The transition from the library's hush to the city's traffic noise was jarring. We stood on the steps, shivering slightly.
"I'm going to get a tea," he said, looking at his feet and then at me. "Do you want to come? Or was the bookmark incident too traumatic?"
I laughed, and it felt real. "I can handle a tea."
We didn't fall in love on the spot. I didn't feel like the universe shifted. But as we walked to the cafe, our shoulders brushed against each other, and I didn't pull away. It wasn't magic. It was just a comfortable rhythm, a sense that I could be my awkward self and he wouldn't mind. And honestly? That's better than magic.
