She Thought He Was Done After One Date
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The first time they met, Bridget thought that she and Nick were hitting if off until Nick said he'd be "too busy" to see her again.
Nick, now 28-year-old, initiated contact with Bridget, but she did the asking out.
"I'm very forward. I grew up on the East Coast with the mentality if you see something you want, you to go after it. I've taken that same philosophy with my dating relationships," Bridget, 27, says. "Plus, men aren't mind-readers! You have to help them along!"
Bridget texted Nick and asked him to meet up for coffee. "Coffee is such a comfort beverage for me, and I figured it was a safe bet—worst-case scenario if we didn't hit it off, then we can part ways early without being rude. "
Blown away by Bridget
Nick and Bridget agreed to meet up at a coffee shop near where Nick lived in Perrysburg, OH—and an hour-and-a-half drive from Bridget's home in Cleveland.
The whole drive, Bridget felt butterflies fluttering in her chest. She felt so nervous that she had to stop at a rest stop to buy a Cinnabon so that she could eat away her nerves.
"I arrived at the coffee shop, my blonde hair straightened, my brown boots zipped, and my cherry red lipstick on point—or so I thought. One of the coffee shop girls pointed out I had lipstick on my teeth."
As Bridget walked into the place they planned to meet, she saw Nick stand up. She instantly felt attracted to him, and he shared her feelings. After nervously waiting for her for over a half-hour, Nick was blown away when he saw Bridget.
"When Bridget walked into the coffee shop, I immediately thought, 'Wow, she's beautiful!'" he recalls. "I said to myself, 'Nick, you have no chance with her!'"
Bridget hugged Nick, and they start talking right off the bat. That put both of them at ease.
"It was very exciting that Bridget gave me a hug," he remembers. "Our conversation was effortless. I had never been so comfortable talking to a girl before. However, I did not see the coffee house as our first date. I just thought it was us meeting for the first time."
Is he dumping me?
Bridget felt giddy because everything was going so well—that is until they parted. Nick dropped a bomb on her happy mood.
"At the end of our date, I hugged him and said it was great meeting him, and I hoped we could meet up again. He hugged me and said it was nice meeting me, he was going to be busy for the next two weeks, and that he'd get back to me after," she recalls.
Bridget immediately went from feeling ecstatic about the date to feeling crestfallen. She couldn't believe he was dumping her after their first meeting! Typically, Bridget had been the one to break off budding relationships. She had been a serial, online dater before Nick, and the relationships usually had an expiration date of a few weeks. Bridget had hoped for things to work out with Nick. She liked that he was a sports fan, close with his family, authentically Catholic, and she thought that he had a genuine interest in getting to know her.
Looking for consolation
Feeling low, Bridget turned to the person who could console her best.
"So what does any good Catholic girl do after her heart is CRUSHED? I called my mother, and I told her all about the date and asked her if I should call Nick and thank him for paying for my coffee and tell him once again that I had a great time," she says.
Bridget's mother advised, "'Absolutely not, Bridget Louise! You should not call him!'"
She listened to her mother. Rather than calling Nick, she went to the grocery store and bought a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream.
"I was getting ready to chow down my sorrows when Nick texted me and asked if I made it home safe," Bridget recalls fondly.
Bridget had worried for nothing. A few weeks later, she and Nick went on their second date—a hiking adventure where Nick got them lost—and the couple became inseparable.
Seventy-two days
Nick and Bridget only dated 72 days before Nick proposed. They were at their favorite park when they stopped at one of the bench swings overlooking the Maumee River. Bridget didn't have an inkling that Nick carried an engagement ring in his pocket.
"We had talked about random things for about an hour. Before we left the swing, Nick looks at me and says, 'Do you know how much I love you?' My reply was, 'I think so, but I might need some reminding" pointing to my lips for a kiss (which was our thing; we had done that countless times before)," she shares.
Kissing Bridget, Nick knelt before her, pulled out a ring box from his pocket, and said, "Bridget, will you make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife?"
"I said yes without hesitation but was bracing the bench with my hands. Nick had to ask me for my hand literally so he could put the ring on it," she recalls. "We will have been engaged 371 days before we get married, which was not our choice! Family life happened, and this was the first available date we could get. Our wedding will be on regardless of the Coronavirus. We walk by faith and Lysol!"