by Doreen F.
I have always had a tendency towards dyslexia when it came to number, e.g. instead of 46 I would write 64. The exactly same thing happened to me when I met my boyfriend. A friend of mine had a new phone number which she told me over the phone. I wrote it down, but apparently I mixed two numbers up. I did not realise my mistake until I wanted to call her some days later. It was quite late at night and I had had a really hard day at work. Imagine my surprise when somebody else answered the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Anja, could I talk to Jen?"
"I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong number, I’m afraid I don’t know any Jen."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive, my name’s Rafael, you definitely have the wrong number."
"Great, I must have mixed up some numbers. I’m sorry to have bothered you at this late hour."
"Don’t worry, I don’t go to bed that early."
"Good. Well, now I’ve got to dial every other possible combination of numbers to reach my friend. How many calls would that be?"
"Very many, I don’t have to be a mathematician to tell you that, do I?"
"No, well, I hope some of our mutual friends have her new number otherwise I’ll go berserk. And imagine all the people I wake up while trying to find the right number!"
"That might be true. You’d better wait till tomorrow then."
"So who am I going to talk to now?"
"Try me, if you don’t mind talking to strangers."
"Well, why not, it might be even easier to speak with someone who doesn’t know me inside out. But feel free to tell me about yourself too. "
"Alright. Let’s just start by introducing each other. As you know by now I’m Rafael. I’m 25 and I work as a project manager at small company."
"Great, I’m Anja, 25 as well, well I will be on Wednesday and I just started working as a software engineer at a big company and the job is hell."
We spent nearly the whole night talking and got along really well. It was quite weird at the beginning, but we felt we had similar interests and opinions on many things. Time passed incredibly fast and before I knew it was 4 in the morning. We ended our conversation and promised to call each other again soon.
On the next day I thought it had been a dream. I felt quite unreal until my phone rang. It was Rafael who wanted to make sure he had not been imagining things. We chatted for a while. As it was Saturday, neither of us had to go to work. I suggested that we should meet. I was really kind of weird to know quite a lot about a person without knowing what the other one looked like. Rafael agreed, but did not have time that particular day. So we decided to meet on Sunday. In the morning he called and seemed a little reluctant to meet.
"I’m not sure we should meet. Maybe this is so much better on the phone and we’d be disappointed if we met and would never talk to each other again."
"Oh, come on. It’s been quite crazy to spend so much time on the phone with somebody we don’t know. Meeting can’t be much crazier, can it?"
"Well, not really, but what if you don’t like the way I look. I don’t want to disappoint you."
"That’s bad luck then, but, hey, we could still be friends. So let’s just get it over with."
"Okay, you’ve convinced me."
We met in a park near a huge fountain, which was quite a good meeting point. You can’t imagine how nervous I was, and how nervous Rafael was.
He was early and I immediately hoped that the cute guy standing at the fountain was him. But what if he was not? What if he had decided not to come? I approached him and he gave a nearly imperceptible squint. God, that was cute.
"Hi, please, tell me you’re Rafael and not someone gorgeous who doesn’t know me and that one of the ugly guys approaching is the one I’m waiting for."
"Hi Anja, it’s good to finally meet you. I was just about to say that I’m a friend of Rafael’s who’s been told to check you out, but since you are definitely as beautiful as I’ve imagined, I won’t have to make up some stupid lie which you would not buy because I’m really bad at imitating other voices."
"You’re just as funny as on the phone. I think meeting wasn’t that bad after all, was it?"
"No, not really, I should say."
We walked through the park until the icy wind got so strong that we did not want to walk around much longer.
"I wouldn’t mind drinking something hot like a coffee. What about you?"
"My frozen body won’t say no to that. Where do you want to go?"
"Around here there aren’t any cafés which are open today. Let’s just go to the city centre."
"Okay, uh…are you here by car?"
"No actually I took the metro and walked down from the station. What about you?"
"My car’s parked in the street next to the exit."
"Great, let’s take your car, shall we? Otherwise I’ll be freezing and no coffee could warm me. On Sundays there are always plenty of parking spaces in the centre. I know where to look."
"Okay, but I don’t know the centre that well, so you’ll have to guide me!"
"No problem, let’s go."
In the car Rafael turned on the heating and I could feel my fingers again. Before he started driving he smiled apologetically saying, "I’m afraid I won’t be much of a good driver without these", putting on a pair of glasses. I did not really know what to say. I lost my word which does not happen easily. I knew I had to say something, anything. "I guess that I’m to blame now, if we get lost", I said with a smile, "Although my contact lenses should be quite up to date." Rafael turned to face me, smiled and reversed out of the parking space. I was still nervous and really excited. If only he knew how gorgeous he looked in glasses. We went to the city centre, found a parking space and went to a really nice café. Rafael apparently did not seem to mind wearing glasses that much since he kept his on. When we entered the café his glasses fogged up. He took them off and tucked them to his collar. We sat down at one of the tables in the corner where you had a view of the pedestrian area. We ordered a big Latté each and also chose to eat some cake.
We were talking over our steaming cups when suddenly Rafael put on his glasses quite casually. I smiled and he got the impression that some explanation was needed. "Uh, I just wanted to see you as clearly as you see me" he added with a smile.
"You look really good in glasses."
"You think so?"
"Definitely."
"Well, maybe I would say the same about you."
"Probably, but there’s only one way to find out, we’ll have to go to my place."
"If you don’t mind."
"Why should I?"
"I don’t know, but it’s probably not so common to invite strange men to your place."
"I don’t invite strange men to my place. Let’s go."
Once at my place I took out my contacts and Rafael seemed to be as turned on by seeing me in glasses as I was by him wearing glasses, although he tried not to show it. But after some time we could not resist anymore and the tension became unbearable. We simply had to relieve it by kissing and…you know.