I teach hot yoga for a living. I breathe through discomfort. I hold space for people. I am, by most accounts, a patient and grounded human being.
And yet. Here I am. Writing a newsletter about how a man I met on an app told me he loved me before we finished our appetizers.
Let’s call him Jake. Jake is tall. Jake is cute. Jake apparently has a lot of feelings and absolutely zero understanding of appropriate romantic timelines. This is his story. And mine. And honestly — a little bit yours too, because if you’re reading this, you probably know a Jake.
Before we even met in person, Jake had complaints. Traffic. His boss. The general injustice of his Tuesday. I kept it light — supportive, warm, the way I am. I teach yoga. Holding space is literally my job.
He picked me up. In a work truck. A large white work truck with what I can only describe as the entire contents of a construction site rattling around in the bed. The inside was chaotic in a way that suggested either he was very busy building things, or he was auditioning for an episode of Hoarders. I chose to find it rugged. I am an optimist.
I had made a reservation — because Jake could not handle making a reservation — at a restaurant I genuinely love. We’re looking at the menu. The vibe is fine. And then Jake has an idea.
He’ll order the drinks. I’ll order the food. A little game. Cute, right?
Reader, I never got my MAGarita.
For the uninitiated: a MAGarita is a mezcal, skinny, spicy margarita. It is my drink. It is perfect. It was ordered for neither of us.
One drink was fine. One was not. We were fawning over the mole appetizer — genuinely great mole, the restaurant did not miss — when Jake decided we should leave, go somewhere else, and play the same ordering game again. No entree. Just vibes and bad cocktails, apparently.
So we walked to the second spot. I made a little joke to keep things light. You know the kind — low stakes, throwaway, just filling air. And Jake looked at me and said, without hesitation, without irony, without any apparent awareness of where we were in the human connection timeline:
“I love you.”
I made a face. I don’t know exactly what face. But it was a face that communicated, I hope, please do not make this weird.
He then said: “I can’t believe you like me.”
Jake. Buddy. I don’t even know your last name.
I laughed. I pivoted. I am a yoga teacher — I have spent twenty years learning to breathe through things that make me want to run. I stayed present. I was gracious. And then I went home, alone, and stared at my ceiling for a while.
The next day he wanted to hang out again. I should have said no. Instead — and I’m still not entirely sure why, curiosity maybe, or that particular brand of compassionate masochism that keeps yoga teachers in business — I told him I was going to see a band on U Street and he could come.
The show was at Whitlow’s. My friend plays bass. The front man is tall, former military, objectively gorgeous. The crowd was entirely in their twenties. Jake and I were, without question, the oldest people there — a thing that keeps happening to me lately and that I have not fully made peace with. (This is why I love the Grateful Dead. I am always on the younger side at a Dead show. It’s the only place left.)
My friends liked him. The night was fine, actually. I even let him come back to my place. I kicked him out in the wee hours. He took an Uber. No drama.
And then the texts started. And the calls. And then — I want you to really absorb this — a bouquet of gorgeous flowers arrived at my yoga studio.
At my place of business.
Gorgeous flowers.
I am off the apps.
Here’s what I keep coming back to, because I am incapable of just having a bad date without turning it into a meditation: Jake wasn’t a bad person. He was just someone who confused intensity for intimacy. Who showed up so eager to arrive at the feeling that he skipped the whole journey. I know that energy. I’ve probably had it myself, in different rooms, different years.
The practice — on the mat and off it — is learning to be where you actually are. Not where you want to be. Not where you’re afraid you’ll never get to. Just here. This moment. This mole. This margarita you haven’t gotten yet.
Mostly centered. Working on it.
— Maggie
Centeredish | Hot yoga teacher. Single in DC. Ish.