Member-only story
We run in the rain
I got my partner by getting him to take me running
This was how it started. We’d met at a book club, and we were in the middle of that nervous dance where two people try to work out whether the other one likes them or not. Not likes, but likes. We’d chatted about playing Skyrim, we’d talked books (of course). He’d added me on Facebook and sent me pictures of his cat.
We were at that point where one of us would have to cross the line and ask the other out, where somebody had to put themselves in danger of rejection. Of risking I like you, but don’t like you. At the same time as messaging with him, I messaged with a friend, because I hadn’t done this in a long time, and not in the age of social media. At the end of a long conversation, I somehow persuaded him to take me running.
I explained: I used to run, and loved it. But I broke my ankle in 2016 and since then I’ve been too nervous to try it, especially outdoors. I had trainers, though, which I’d bought the day before I’d broken my ankle. He suggested we go running together.
It was the perfect thing to do. No need to sit awkwardly across from each other in a restaurant, each one trying to keep the conversation going, constantly reading signals and assessing whether this was working or not. We could run, and talk, and see how it felt to be doing…
