Ch. 1 - It all started with a friend request

चलो शुरू से ही शुरवात करते है।

If you know anyone from Dombivli you would relate to what I am about to say, “Everyone knows everyone in Dombivli”. The world is so small, Dombivli is smaller :D Even before we started talking to each other we had almost 40-50 mutual friends on facebook.

I have been a people person since school days and been a part of large groups.Yet after my 1st relationship in college days I have been single for almost 5 years. And that was by choice. I did believe what people say, “Right person for you will come into your life at the right point in time”. However, I also believed that if I don’t meet people how can the “Right Person” be identified? Back in 2016, It was the time when I was eagerly willing to talk to new people. Not with an intention to start a relationship or something but just a feeling to broaden my circle and get to know new people.

Her profile came in the facebook suggestions and I felt like sending her a friend request. To be honest, I wasn’t sending random requests to every pretty girl, but something clicked in mind as I saw her profile and so I did click the Add Friend button. She has also been a person who doesn’t entertain random friend requests and even if she does, she scrutinises the profile :D Fortunately, she found something interesting in my profile and accepted my friend request.

There wasn’t any conversation for a few days until we coincidentally met in a poetry reading event in Thane. It was the moment when you do recognize that you are friends on facebook but you are too conscious to initiate a conversation.

Another coincidence is we travelled back home in the same train having adjacent see-through compartments. We got off at Dombivli Station and finally exchanged a smile, because a lot of ignorance had already happened. :D

The same night we started with a conversation on messenger. The most difficult part is initiating a chat with an unknown person and that too when you have started feeling a slight inclination. With a lot of guts and heavy breaths our conversation took a kick start. It felt a little comfortable when we got to know that we have a lot of mutual friends in person and not just on facebook. That brings a lot of content for conversation starters.

For a month or two we rarely had conversations and suddenly I asked her if she would like to catch up on a coffee or something? To which she took some time to revert and finally said Yes. (Probably she was discussing it with her best friends). Well, I was certainly discussing it with my best friends :D You know that phase, right?

We decided to meet at a small cafe which was midway for both of us. People call it ‘going on a date’, but since both of us have been a little old school types, for us it was a super nervous first meet up. It was supposed to be a quick meet up as both of us had some plans after it. We met at the cafe around 5:30 pm. It was a different feeling. The conversations went so well that it felt like waiting 5 mins more every time we said, “Chalo lets ask for a bill?” And we ended up cancelling our following plans and our 20 mins quick meet up turned into 3 hours of a wonderful time. Finally seeing the cafe getting crowded we thought to finally let others get a chance to have a good time :D I walked her till a certain distance and finally we shared a hug to say goodbye.

Sometimes it takes years to build a connection and sometimes just a few hours. It was one amongst such meetups. And both of us had a mutual feeling of meeting a stranger after a really long time with whom you feel a connection. The numbers got exchanged and a nice friendship started evolving. We don’t call it a date, because for both of us it was not a chase to find a partner, it was just a great time knowing a new person.

We weren’t talking a lot but whenever we did, it was a good conversation. It must have been almost 9 months or a year since we knew each other personally, but we hardly met once or twice. Suddenly sometime in mid 2017 we met again and both of us started getting a feeling to meet more often. There wasn’t a conscious thought to take the relationship into any direction but in our minds we both felt, Let’s go with the Flow.

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