They set me up on a blind date with an overweight woman… But my reaction made everyone cry.
The night my friends tried to play a prank on me, I ended up meeting the woman who would change my life.
They were expecting awkward moments, nervous laughter, maybe even an excuse for me to leave early.
But they didn’t expect Emma Collins to be the most interesting person at the whole table.
My name is Adam Reed. I was 34 years old and had been single for so long that my friends and family had started to see my love life as a community issue.
My sister was sending me profiles.
My colleagues made jokes.
My friends lectured me about “starting dating again,” as if it were an obligation I was unaware of.
I wasn’t bitter. Just tired.
A year earlier, I had ended a peaceful relationship. No scandal, no betrayal. Just two people gradually accepting that they aspired to different futures.
After that episode, I decided to spend some time alone.
Not because I was broken.
But because, for the first time in a long time, I was at peace.
Then Mark, my friend, invited me to dinner.
“It will be simple,” he said. “Nothing special.”
I should have suspected something.
Nothing good begins with the expression “nothing special”.
The restaurant was in the city center, with dim lighting, long tables, and a menu where even the potatoes had complicated names. When I walked in, Mark was already seated with his wife, along with two other couples, and there was an empty chair next to a woman I didn’t know.
She looked up.
And before anyone could even say a word, I understood what was happening.
It’s not his fault.
It’s the chamber’s fault.
Furtive glances. Suppressed smiles. Mark’s wife, too absorbed in her drink. A man at the end of the table, leaning back in his chair, as if waiting for the show to begin.
The woman sitting next to the empty chair noticed it too.
Her name was Emma.
She was about my age. Warm brown eyes, mid-length black hair and a simple and elegant dark blue dress, the kind of dress that doesn’t need to be flashy to be beautiful.
Yes, she had curves.
But that wasn’t the first thing I noticed.
The first thing I noticed was its immobility.
No shyness.
Immobility.
Like someone who enters a room, immediately perceives its atmosphere and decides not to give others the satisfaction of seeing it tremble.
Mark got up too quickly.
“Adam, here you are.”
I watched it.
“Here I am.”
“This is Emma,” she said with a practiced smile. “Emma, Adam.”
Emma smiled politely.
“HI.”
“Hello,” I replied.
Mark then added:
“We thought you two might… you know… get along well.”
An eerie silence settled over the table.
That’s it.
It wasn’t a date.
It was a test.
Perhaps even a joke.
I didn’t know what reaction they expected from me. Embarrassment, perhaps. A forced laugh, perhaps. Or an excuse to leave.
Instead, I pulled up the chair next to Emma and sat down.
“Perfect,” I said. “I was hoping there would be at least one person here who hadn’t already heard the same three stories.”
Emma looked at me.
He really looked at me.
And for the first time that evening, he cracked a smile.
For the next few minutes, everyone tried to act as if it were a normal dinner.
They failed.
CONTINUE READING…>>
ADVERTISEMENT
