Well, I mean, the first one that comes to mind was with Rachel, obviously, because most recent first date was fresh to mind. And I didn't, it wasn't a date, actually. We had just kind of met up at a coffee shop after convention, after years of knowing each other. We both kind of backdated it as being a date, but it was definitely in the moment, like, not an official date. We were just going to have coffee and to hang out because we were both nerdy-helping professionals. It was Metropolis Coffee up in Greenville, and it's a...
kind of big for a coffee shop several rooms but we had he walked into metropolis and had this like smile on his face like he was happy to see me and kind of that was just such a relief and such a breath of fresh air and like there's kind of us and then right next to us but we sat there and we talked about everything from like
Brene Brown and vulnerability, which was a huge thing. I had yet to encounter a cis dude who spoke about Brene Brown with any kind of sincerity. I remember feeling relaxed and engaged. Everything. He ended up... The time just sort of flew by. If anything, we had to kind of slow down because a great date, sometimes yes-ending happens too fast. You finish a sentence and there's three things that the other person wants to comment on in that sentence.
That felt just really safe. We talked a lot about self-compassion, I think, which was the big thing. For both of us, it's something we struggle with and continue to struggle with. Something that we both have in common is loving her work. And just like some random turn of phrase along the way will be reminiscent of a line of poetry or a line of Shakespeare or something. And I remember walking back and just, yeah.
Like, taking in the sunshine, it was early spring, but it was, like, a little warmer in spring. Like, for some reason, it was, like, that one week of spring that's really nice before it gets cold again before summer starts. So I just remember really, like, soaking that in and just, like, feeling like I was glad to have to walk home to take a breath and, like... And I just remember it being one of those where, like, I didn't have any expectations at all going in. I was just like, I'm going to get to have a conversation with this person. Her costume was really cool, and I know nothing about her.
And an hour and a half later, it was like, is there such thing as a second date when it wasn't a date? How long do I wait before I text to say, let's talk again, let's get together in some way? I waited about five minutes. I was on the train and being like, I could play this really cool, but why? They're on that train in that moment.
So I was coming into his garden apartment. I remember feeling butterflies in my stomach. It was like a movie shot where the sheets kind of artfully draped across the chest. And you've got like one arm up. And he had the most soothing, peaceful, but also really happy things. I don't notice anybody else on the train because I'm completely in my own head in that moment. I was so grateful that I was right there with him. And I just had to kind of stop the picture of it. It must have been.
It's springtime. It looks so wonderful. So the weather for like one day in Chicago isn't pressing in on you either as heat or as cold. And I just felt simultaneously in the present and so far ahead, like extremely excited and extremely hopeful about who knows what. But it just felt we finished that and felt very just, yeah. I think how I felt afterwards is what makes that day just feel so special to me is that I felt very held. The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish.