Uri and I met almost four years ago in a hostel in Lithuania. He was a Berliner, and weeks later I’d be heading briefly to Berlin to take the GRE (before continuing to a refugee camp in Greece for some volunteering, as one does). We had a couple of interesting Berlin dates, and in pondering my present Berlin move along with 30d30d, Uri was top of mind as someone I would like to reconnect with.

Why? Because four years ago, I realized I may have missed an opportunity. Uri had liked me, and he was quite direct in telling me so. It caught me quite off guard! In part because I was only visiting Berlin for five days, and in part because he was 13 years younger than me. I was 36, he was 23. Yet we shared passions for travel, adventure, music, and intellectual discussion. We had fun together. Four years later, we reconnected over covid-related at-home FacebookLive concerts. He was top of mind, and I couldn’t present a rational reason for dismissing him other than age.

With a clear objective to challenge my own assumptions and places I’ve held myself back, I decided to be bold and go after him. I messaged him and suggested fairly directly that we should go out.

He had moved to Belgium. Argh! No matter. We arranged a Zoom date. My objective for the date (Zoom or otherwise) was to acknowledge my reciprocation of his feelings. The thought scared me, a LOT. But here we go.

In the end, our Zoom date fell on a day when I was particularly stressed and distraught (stress from work + building this blog at a fast pace). So I took advantage of the date to exercise my second objective: sharing what I feel rather than hiding it. The call lasted an hour. He was happy to reconnect. Little by little we recounted our last “date.” I told him about 30d30d, and directly stated that this was the reason I was reaching out to him, and that I didn’t have any rationale for saying no to him four years ago. He responded very enthusiastically and took it as a compliment. My openness and vulnerability could not have been better received! That little win felt fantastic.

By the end of the call, I also noted that we ran out of things to talk about. One might blame Zoom, but I think it reflected the depth of our connection. Very nice guy, and happy to hang out with him again, but I didn’t feel a compelling draw to him as I once had. And that’s ok. I was glad I took the chance. And perhaps what special spark happens in Vilnius stays in Vilnius.