Weddingbee Blog

Our Story: Part I

Our Story: Part II

Our Story: Part III

Amidst my introduction to Mr. Funnel Cake, I was actually going through a rough spot in relationships. I was confused, lonesome, hurt, angry, and generally fed up with most of the men I’d been involved with, or who I was still partially involved with. I went to Europe leaving most of my male relationships and friendships a mess and with a definite pessimistic attitude toward the opposite sex. While I was happy I wasn’t shackled down with a boyfriend while I was abroad, I was jealous of my friends and family back home in committed relationships because my love life seemed such a hopeless mess.

It was because of this that I was cautious about the men I met in Europe, and much too shy to ever initiate anything. I had some vague crushes here and there, but I had imposed a rule on myself that the next time I would lose my heart to a man, I wanted him to be the one to make the first move. So while I was happy to meet new people, I was not about to be promiscuous.

Shortly after going abroad, I also found out my sister was engaged to her boyfriend of six months. After my initial reaction of pure joy and excitement for her, the reality sank in that my sister was getting married and leaving me behind. Depressed, I cried and cried, unable to imagine a man ever loving me again.

Sound overly dramatic? It was. I was damaged.

In fact, right before my second “date” with Mr. Funnel Cake, I wrote the following journal entry:

I haven’t met a nice pre-law/doctor and I’m not going to. I’m not going to meet the “right guy.” People can stop telling me he’s out there because I’m tired of hearing that he just hasn’t found me yet. Mr. Nice Guy…he’s really really bad at finding me. Maybe he’s in a boat, in an ocean, without a compass…but he’s not here.

Sounds a little despondent, no? So you can see, I was fairly thick about Mr. Funnel Cake at the time. My mother knew I was upset about my sister’s engagement because of my own sorry relationship status, and she wrote me the following words of encouragement around this time:

I hope you don’t stay upset about your sister for too long. She is so happy, and she wants everyone to be happy for you. I think you will find your Prince Charming someday, but you have to be your normal happy interesting self or no one will look twice at you.

Considering how negative I was, I’m almost surprised I got anywhere with Mr. Funnel Cake at all. Despite my internal anti-men mantra, I did contact Mr. Funnel Cake again, about a week after our first meeting. After seeing me pull out my huge camera at the botanical garden on our first encounter, Mr. Funnel Cake mentioned there was supposed to be a nice photo museum in Winterthur, a town about twenty minutes away from Zürich. (Mr. Funnel Cake had originally told my friend he was from Zürich, but he actually lived around Winterthur, so I had to adjust myself to the idea he was not living in the city as I was first told.)

I wrote him an email telling him I would love to go to the photo museum sometime and wondering if Mr. Funnel Cake would go with me. He wrote me back and said he was actually about to write me an email on the same topic! I asked him if I should meet him in Winterthur by train and told him it was his call. He “passed the ball” back to me by suggesting he could come pick me up in Zürich with his parents’ car and also said that I had been invited to dinner at his parents’ house if I was interested.

Now, at this point…I got some tingly girly feelings. I hadn’t been in an automobile for about two months at this point, so the thought alone of being in a car again was cool…but having a cute boy pick me up to go to a photo museum and then having dinner with his parents…eeep! Sounded serious! It was the second time I was meeting him. My imagination was getting ahead of me, of course, because Mr. Funnel Cake and his parents are really very hospitable people. I accepted and told him where and when to pick me up.

So it was pretty exciting to have my first “real” date in a long time…where somebody picked me up with a car, took me out, and brought me back home safely. We strolled around the photo museum for hours. I didn’t understand all of the captions in German, so Mr. Funnel Cake had to explain some things to me…and when he didn’t understand something about photography, I would explain it to him.

In the evening we went to his parents’ house, and I got to see my first “Swiss home”; being the daughter of some house connoisseurs, I was very interested in the layout of the home, the materials used to build it, decor, etc. I get VERY excited about looking at homes, apartments, condos…you name it. If it has a kitchen and a bathroom…I want to see the closet space and everything!

After the great pleasure of a house tour, including seeing where Mr. Funnel Cake slept, we spent a little time alone in his room (on the third floor!) chatting before dinner. I felt slightly nervous sitting on his bed talking to him because it was such a private space of his to be seeing. Swiss people in general are typically quiet, reserved, and secluded, so to have the privilege to be invited into their home was pretty special to me. I figured that even if I never saw any of them again, having a meal in a real Swiss home while studying abroad was exactly the sort of experience I wanted to remember from my time here. It was so much more intimate and memorable than visiting a local bar.

At dinner, I was introduced to my first fondue meal. I was a little nervous about eating it because it is a very communal dish and we are not used to eating it in the States. I was worried I would drop the bread in the pot and be mortified by their response. It was fine, of course, and at dinner I was first introduced to the funny predicament of language in the Funnel Cake home. My FMIL is 100% Swiss, you see, but she was born and raised in Brazil, so she speaks Portuguese, and when she came here to live she learned high German. My FFIL speaks pretty good English, so I was able to speak to him and Mr. Funnel Cake, and then they would translate things into German and Portuguese for her. It is a little confusing having the children speak Portuguese to their mother and the father only speaking German to her, but it seems to work. It just makes for strange eavesdropping!

After the meal, I went back up to Mr. Funnel Cake’s room for a while. It was really nice to sit and talk with him…and I even had some thoughts about what would happen if I made a move on him. It felt kind of like we were in high school and I was visiting him in his bedroom like a 16-year-old, except that I never had boyfriends or dates in high school, so I don’t really know what that’s like. But I reminded myself that I really did not want to be that girl…and that if Mr. Funnel Cake was interested in me, he would make a move. Around 10 PM, I thought I should be a good dinner guest and excuse myself, as was the proper thing to do.

Mr. Funnel Cake drove me back to my building, and I enjoyed every second of the drive. I was anxious, wondering what would happen when we got to the door…and hoping that Mr. Funnel Cake would kiss me then. It seemed foolish and crazy, but I liked him and I wanted him to like me back.

When we arrived at my house, Mr. Funnel Cake pulled the car over and we sat for a bit saying our goodbyes. I could sense there wasn’t really an opportunity for Mr. Funnel Cake to lean over and kiss me, and I didn’t think he was going to get out of the car and walk me to the door, which I didn’t blame him for. In a last ditch effort to see him again, I asked him if he would like to come along when my design friends visited for Thanksgiving in a couple weeks. They were supposed to be in town the first weekend we met at the botanical gardens, so I thought maybe he would still be interested showing a bunch of American girls around town.

Mr. Funnel Cake said no. He didn’t think he could make it because he had to go to the military for his annual service soon…and with classes, he just didn’t have enough time. He said he was sorry and that it was nice spending time with me, but he didn’t think he would be able to see me again before I had to go back to America.

Slightly gutted, I got out of the car and went to my room. I wrote a short journal entry to sum it up that evening:

The perfect date is bittersweet when you know that you will never see the person ever again. How frustrating.