The Night We Locked Eyes

Nine minutes to fall in love. Ten minutes to miss the goodbye. Part 1

I have to begin at the beginning. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. It was love at first sight—and I mean that in the literal sense. The second we saw each other, we locked eyes. It wasn't until a few minutes had passed that we even started talking.

I was on a final date with a guy I'd met two weeks earlier. He was entertaining but a mess. And I don't mean the kind of mess you come to accept six months in—I mean the kind of red flags that summon stop lights, barricades, hazard signs, orange cones, sirens, and fairy dust straight into a hazmat suit.

We were at a bar in the Mission District in San Francisco. I was there to tell him it wasn't going to work. He had already sparked up an attitude, and I had the clarity to call it out.

I felt it before I saw him. A shift. A presence. Like when the air changes before lightning cracks the sky. He strolled into the pub—tall (6'4"), sandy-brown hair, cerulean eyes behind spectacles glinting in the glow—and the instant he entered, his gaze locked onto mine as if we had orchestrated it.

As he passed us at the counter, he greeted “dude” , but his energy stayed locked on me. That's when the room tightened. The current between us pulled taut—like air before a thunderstorm.

I'll refer to him as J.

J embodied all the physical qualities I desired in a man. If I could "Weird Science" my dream guy, it would be him. A scientist in tech with a PhD from an Ivy League school with a love for travel and playing guitar.

The three of us moved to a booth, and J and I immediately sparked a conversation about art and music—like we were the only two people in the bar. It wasn't solely physical. There was rhythm. Flirtatious banter. Our laughter, our intellect, the ease—it felt like meeting someone I'd known for lifetimes. It was instant, unfiltered, like déjà vu with depth.

That exchange lasted nine minutes. It was June 9th, 2019. 

Nine minutes. That’s all it took for something inside me to rewire.

For me, connection usually takes time to unfurl. I never give out my number, I direct them to social media. But when he asked, I put it into his phone without a second thought. I remember telling him I never give my number out in this short amount of time. It surprised even me.

J left. A few minutes later I rose to leave, the dude turned nasty. I matched his tone, set the boundary, and walked out—high heels clicking like punctuation.

On the way home, I got a text from J. It turned out we lived on the same street, just one block apart. We messaged for thirty minutes, maybe more, before he asked if I wanted to meet for a drink.

I said yes.

When I arrived, I found him seated in the nearly empty bar. It was closing soon. 

I slid onto the stool next to him. The air between us hadn’t cooled.

As we stood, I noticed his true height—a giraffe compared to my five-foot frame.

I tilted my head to meet his eyes. His smile was contagious and beautiful.

We picked up right where we left off. There was no awkwardness. No filler. 

Just more.

We were around the same age, I was a little over a year older. We shared the same sense of humor, cultural references, and wanderlust. Later, I would learn that our sexual kinks aligned, too.

I don’t remember the full conversation, only the feeling of it; floating above my body, half in this world, half somewhere else. 

I remember taking my hair down, letting it fall. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t performing. It was natural.

His face shifted, like he was seeing a mermaid in real life. Something mythical.

His breath caught. He stared. Not creepy. Curious. Awestruck. Like he had stumbled upon something wild and rare.

“Wow,” he said. “Your hair is... intoxicating.”

Silence.

Where no one reaches for their drink, no one looks away.

The kind that wraps around you like a second skin. 

Slows down time.

Standing on the edge of something irreversible.

“Can I kiss you?”

I hesitated. I found SF steeped in polyamory, and most of the men I met weren’t my vibe. 

But this felt different.

“Yes,” I said. “But nothing more than that.”

He kissed me.

The kiss itself wasn’t magical, but the sincerity was. The pause before. The look in his eyes. That moment between breath and touch.

We held eye contact. Still and soft, like we were studying each other’s faces for something we had forgotten we knew.

A glance down. A shared breath.

And then we both smiled.

He kissed me again.

Not rushed. Not aggressive. Like the part of a song that doesn’t need to build - it already knows what it is.

And if I had known my world would shift for the next six months; and the next five years… I would have kissed him longer.

To be continued…