I met a boy in March 2013, in the little town of Bath Spa. It was near the start of my solo journey to Europe to extricate myself from the thick dust of a heady past. A time to explore a corner of the world on my own, to meet interesting people, to see the places I have only imagined. It was liberating, because i had been selfish about it, admitting to myself and God that I really truly wanted to go, for myself. I had anticipated that this short adventure could somehow change a part of me to be bolder, less dependent on companionship and more comfortable with being alone in general.
And then, I met a boy on the second day of my adventure.
Technically, we met in Bristol among friends on a cold drizzling night. We had both journeyed solo to bunk in with friends in the same house. It was a rather quiet but electrical affair, in a way I had thought only resided in movies and the far corners of my girlish imaginations. But it did happen, and have not ended on that kind of half hearted note that seems to accompany every potential affair. He was quiet with a strong build and he seemed to study me with interest from the time we sat down in an italian restaurant. The first thing I noticed about him was that he ordered wine with his meal too, an extravagant thing to do for a backpacker. It happened that we were planning to head to Bath Spa the next morning and it was natural that we made plans to go together after the long walk home after a heavy dinner.
The rain brought with it more romantic overtures the next day.
The weather in Bath Spa was horrid with unrelenting winds and dreary rain. He had an umbrella and offered me his arm as we braved the wind to see the old town together. Honestly, I remembered nothing much about the large Roman bath I was so excited to see, nor the city that housed it. One thing was that Ephesus in 2012 had been too impressive and a single Roman bath in Spa cordoned off like an exhibit seemed to lack lustre in comparison.The second was this stranger I was holding on to, who seemed mysterious and interested in who I was. From the time we were on the train towards Bath from Bristol, he had taken the initiative to talk to me and asked me why I was travelling alone. Being in an adventurous and friendly mood myself, the conversation had flowed on its own. I barely noticed the harsh weather conditions nor the town itself as we chatted and walked around.
We didn't have much time together, just one morning as he was headed to Stonehenge and I had a train to catch to London. Before we parted ways, he asked for my number to stay in touch and gave me a hearty bear hug. It was nice and warm and I found myself hoping that we would see each other. It was all very strange.
I thought frequently about this boy i met for the rest of my trip in London and Paris. He texted me now and then even as he took his trip around the other parts of Western Europe. He sent me pictures of the food he tried, the car parts that seemed to excite him as he travelled to automobile shows. And i thought to myself, this is a boy who had a hunger for life and colour. A boy who travels. But at the back of my mind, I thought this friendship would very likely end at some point, when we ran out of common topics to talk about, when Europe became to me a faraway place once again, when my own journey ended.
But it wasn't so. We continued to chat, we continued to share the bits of our daily lives over the 14000km that exists between the cities we live in, me on the sunny tropical island and him in the grey and cloudy part of Europe. I learnt that he cooks and had a liking for grease in workshops. He was in his own words, a grease monkey. He came back to Asia to visit family in September 2013 and we met up twice. A part of me had expected the strange spark between us to have faded, by the time we met again. But our second and third meetings, though brief, seemed to have given the spark fuel to keep it burning for a while longer.
There is something special about this boy, though I have not quite figured him out.