23: All things Frederick

I met Frederick during Monday lunch on the Wycliffe lawn. Actually, I was heading in for seconds, he was heading out with firsts, and I invited him to join our table.

A guy friend told me once that he can tell within thirty seconds if he wants to seriously date a girl. I was deeply offended. I mean, is it really all that superficial? The sound of her voice, he said, and the way she looks—his impression after that thirty seconds is never wrong. I make those snap judgments myself but admit to often being wrong (i.e., Jack), and actually being pleased to be wrong. I love the surprise of finding incredible potential where first I could see none.

But with Frederick our ten or fifteen minutes of conversation (okay, so I did have an inkling of this in the first thirty seconds) showed me that we could never be a match, for all my romantic musings. I can’t say exactly why, although our theological bents seemed quite different, and the vibe just wasn’t there. And by this point, to be honest, I was consumed elsewhere, so maybe I wanted Frederick to not really be a match.

Oh, and his name isn’t Frederick, but Jesse. Frederick may have been in Oxford, but he wasn’t at Wycliffe, and I never actually met him.