Narrative Essay

Love at First Sight? Heck, No!

                 One of my all-times favorite song goes like this: ¨Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can´t help falling in love with you¨. Magazines, movies, and romance novels are full of love at first sight stories that can make the devil himself fall in love. But is that indeed how it goes in real life? Has anyone really experience love at first sight? In my case, it was most definitely not love at first sight. As a matter of fact, I could even venture to say that it wasn´t love at tenth sight either.  Come to think of it, maybe it was cupid´s idea of a joke. According to wise men, people that fall in love at first sight are fools for rushing in, or do they have no control over their feelings?

                Like most typical college students, I enjoyed spending my leisure time in the campus´ cafeteria. Physically, there was nothing special about the cafeteria. It was your standard college cafeteria, a great big room with restaurants to the sides and a huge space in the middle that had been filled in with lunch tables. Nonetheless, it was just one of those places that drew you to it; a welcoming sight to those who hungered. However, it wasn´t only the food that called to me. The cafeteria was a lot like a mama hen, always willing to shield me in from the nastiness of the world. She had opened her wings to me when I had first failed a class, that time when Aunt Terry had passed away, and all those times when all I wanted was a place to escape. Looking back though, it wasn´t only the bad moments that found me making my way to the cafeteria. Tons of noteworthy moments came to pass in the comfort and warmth of that cafeteria.

            My love story, so to say, begins in that cafeteria. It was a regular day, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. My best friend Ellie and I were seated at our usual spot, the booth next to the pebetes stand. Ellie was being her usual chatty self, ranting about a cellphone she had seen and ¨absolutely¨ needed to have. I, of course, was just staring at her and nodding my head in approval. In reality though, she had lost me two seconds into our conversation. All of a sudden, Ellie said that she wanted to visit the cellphone stand that had just been opened close to the entrance of the cafeteria. Not wanting to be left alone, staring into space, I obliged and trailed behind her. The cafeteria was packed. It seemed as if every single student in college was there that day. Making my way through the throng was not going to be an easy task. Ellie, though, was having no problem moving through the crowd. I looked at her and wondered if maybe she was a descendant of Moses. She was really working some magic parting the crowd.

By the time I finally caught up to her, Ellie had already struck a bargain with the sales guy behind the counter and was getting herself a new cellphone. Elllie´s determination when she wanted something never ceased to amaze me. I was dumfounded by the events unfolding in front of me that I failed to notice the other sales guy standing on the other side of the counter staring directly at me. He was not too tall; his features were striking but not overly handsome. His hair was black and brushed to one    side. His white polo shirt and neatly ironed kaki dress pants fit him quite impeccably and gave him an air of superiority. His eyes had a lively sparkle, they almost seem to be smiling at. His lips started to move. Immediately, I realized he was asking me something, but I had no idea what to answer, so I just smiled at him. As I was about to turn my gaze toward Ellie, he spoke again. He wanted to know if I was interested in purchasing a cellphone. I honestly was not interested so I shook my head and that was the end of our one-sided conversation.

Looking back, I would have never thought that this had been my first run-in with whom soon would be my future husband. Come to think of it, there was no chemistry, no fireworks, not even the butterflies in the stomach that they tell you about in romance novels. Luckily for me, but mostly for him, this story doesn´t end there. Since we were attending the same college, we would eventually run into each other sooner or later and that is exactly what happened. About a month after our first encounter, we ran into each other at the printing shop. The queue was moving ever so slowly and I was quickly growing impatient – this is so not like me. I needed to make it to history class in less than 10 minutes. Time was of the essence. I turned around and there he was standing right behind me. I uttered a quick hello and he answered back. As it turns out, we quickly struck up a conversation. I found out that his name was Fernando Panini and not only did on work on campus, he was also a student. He was majoring in administration and would soon be graduating. Overall, he was a very nice guy and definitely someone I could hang out with. This was the beginning our friendship.

As time passed, Fernando and I became really good friends. Even so, neither of us saw the other in a romantic way. Right around the same time, I started dating a guy whom I had had a crush on for a very long time. Robert was your typical college bad boy, which was exactly what attracted me to him in the first place. Nothing about our relationship was uninteresting. It most definitely was a roller coaster of emotions. He for starters had a problem keeping it in his pants. I was not unaware of his night rendezvous with other girl. As a matter of fact, I was actually pretty well informed about the matter. Stupidly enough, I just turned my head and pretended nothing was going on. The old saying ¨out of sight, out of mind¨ seemed to be the cornerstone in our relationship. The thing is, there came a point in which I was actually secretly thrilled to hear the excuse he would come up with. After a while though, the little game we had been playing became too much for either of us to handle. I would like to say that we had an amicable break up, but even describing it as hard would be an understatement. In the end, we both knew that it was something that needed to happen. Five precious months of my life had been wasted because of my stubbornness but I can most definitely say that it was a learning as well as growing experience.

After our break up, I decided that it was time to get my priorities straight and focus on things that were more important and that is exactly what I did. A year later, I was graduating from college and was finally obtaining my degree in Civil Engineering. I am not going to lie; I was feeling extremely proud of myself. I had finished my degree in record time which was no easy task, especially since it wasn´t what I had wanted to study. My dad had been dead set on my studying engineering and so I had humored him. He knew all along that it was not my passion but he still pushed me to follow in his steps. On the inside though, I really hoped that this meant that now I could pursue my dream of becoming a teacher. On the first chance I got, I applied at a school to obtain a teaching job. I was feeling exhilarated. Soon I came to find that teaching was no easy undertaking. There were a few times in which I felt like quitting. Regardless of the circumstances, I was able to overcome many obstacles and prove to myself that I was capable of doing many things.

I was on an all-time high and it was about to get better. I had been working as a teacher for about eight months when Fernando and I bump into each other. It was such an incredible moment, after all, we hadn´t seen each other in over a year. We had so many things that we had to talk about. There was going to be a lot of catching up to do so we decided to get together for coffee. We ended up doing coffee and dinner because both of us had many things to tell the other. As we were hugging each other goodbye, I felt a warm, fuzzy feeling all over. This had never happened before, it was very strange. The weird thing is that I knew that Fernando had felt it also. We both put it to the side and decided that it was a mix of emotions from seeing each other again. As time passed, we started to spend more time together. We really enjoyed each other´s company. At this point, I knew that I was falling for him but I was too afraid to tell him about it because I didn´t want our friendship to be ruined.

Lucky for me, Fernando was battling with his emotions as well. He was feeling the same way that I was feeling for him. But unlike me, he was not into hiding his emotions. He was going to come clean and tell me everything he felt. On a Friday afternoon, Fernando called me from work and told that we should grab dinner together. I made nothing out of his invitation since we had gone out to dinner so many times before. The place we met at was a bit more elegant than what we were used but I was just glad that I was going to hang out with one of my best friends.