Dinner Talk

Kevin and I met outside our building and started walking to a bar and grill we’d been wanting to check out. It had discreet booths and we were seated right away. The walk over was kind of awkward because neither one of us really talked at all and the silence continued up until our waitress took our orders. Kevin waited for the waitress to leave before starting.

“Look, Faith…I-“

I cut him off, “I don’t really want to talk about the flowers anymore. It’s a stupid fight and I’m over it. We don’t need to talk about it, but I think I need to be honest about something. I’ve been thinking about things since then and I’ve come to a conclusion that isn’t all that encouraging.” I looked down at the table.

“Okay…” He eyed me with confusion and concern.

“I think part of the reason that I flipped out over the flowers is because I don’t trust you.”

I let Kevin deal with the weight of what I said for a few moments and it looked like he was struggling with it. I tried to explain myself after seeing how hurt he was.

“I don’t know why because I don’t have a reason to not trust you after dating for this long. You’ve been honest with me since we started dating, but the stuff before, like not telling me about Hannah, isn’t something I can turn off.”

Kevin nodded then looked at me. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No. I’m just telling you because I want you to know where I am in our relationship… I don’t want to hide anything from you.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, we could go to your apartment. I’ve still never been there and you could introduce me to your friends. You never talk about them, the only thing it ever seems like we talk about is work or me. It’s almost like I don’t know you at all.”

“We can go to my apartment whenever you want, I just thought it was easier if we went to yours since it’s closer and you’d feel more comfortable there.”

“Can we go after dinner?”

“Uh, it’s kind of gross, how about I take you there this weekend? I don’t want you to see my man cave while it’s dirty.”

I laughed at his usage of man cave and asked him to tell me about his friends. He looked uncomfortable.

“Uh…most of my friends are mutual friends of Hannah’s and since we aren’t together anymore they’ve chosen sides…specifically, hers. She knows we’re dating now and thinks I was dating you while I was still with her and so do all of my friends. The complexity of how we get together isn’t something they care to hear about.”

“So you have no friends? At all?”

“I’ve started making some at work…”

I felt bad for Kevin, he was risking so much by being with me: his friendships, his job…we got our food and it was pretty delicious and then we decided to go for a walk in the beautiful weather. It was nice, Kevin bought us some ice cream and we walked along a sparkling lake. I felt safe with him, maybe admitting my distrust to him helped to relieve me of it at the same time. We ended up going back to my place where I showed him a hint of all the dirty things we would be doing in his man cave this weekend.