Steve and I were sitting on some rocks at the top of a waterfall. It was a nice afternoon in late spring. We’d been hiking and creek walking. That was our first date.

What kind of relationship are you looking for? I asked him.

That question was maybe kind of forward, probably too direct. However – I have found it is less upsetting in the long run to clarify expectations sooner rather than later. Hurts too much, otherwise.

And if he had said, “I’m looking for a summer fling,” or “I’m not looking for anything serious,” or “I’m in a dying relationship that I cannot bring myself to leave and what I am looking for is something secret and casual that is just for me” or even “I just want to have a nice day together and see where this goes,” I’m not sure how I would have felt, or even if there would have been another date, as such. We’d been nurturing a strictly platonic connection of which we were both fond for a good while at that point. I would have hesitated to risk losing that for a casual fling. I’ve learned to know better.

He told me that at this point in his life if he was going to date anyone it would be with the intention of making it work and staying together for a long time. He told me that what he was honestly looking for was a forever, basically. He told me he wanted someone to do life with – to go to the gym and the grocery store, and watch TV, and go to concerts, and go hiking, and get to come home to at the end of a long day. He was telling me he was lonely, that it had been a long time since anyone had been fully emotionally available to be with him. He was telling me he wanted something that was healthy and real.

Before the waterfall date, he told me that when he thought he was never going to see me again, he was sad.

And this answer was probaby altogether too forward, too direct, and way too much too soon. But for me it felt like a relief.

I remember I looked down at the waterfall below us. I was quiet for a minute. I thought about the implications of what he had just said. Some of those implications were inevitably going to be tough and complicated and sad. Others seemed promising.

And I said, okay. I said I thought I would be up for trying to do that with him.

And I think that was the closest thing to a wedding vow that I have ever said out loud.

Just two people sitting at the top of a waterfall, together.

The rest of that day was new and strange and awkward – we couldn’t agree on whose hand was meant to be in front when we held hands, for one thing – but it was a good and lovely day. The sun was out. We stood on the upstream side of a bridge over a creek and dropped leaves into the water and then went over to the downstream side of the bridge and waited until we could watch the water carrying the leaves we had dropped. We stood side by side with my arm around his waist and his arm around my shoulder and I thought, huh. Okay. This feels safe. This might even feel lovely, after a little time.

I think maybe that evening was the first time I ever told him “text me when you get home safe” and he said “you too. I’ll watch for your text.” I just didn’t realize the significance of that, at the time.