It started with a Facebook message from a boy I had known peripherally in elementary school lunchrooms, passing through the halls of our high school, and — the main event — seventh grade dance class.

In our school, dance class was a special horror because we weren’t paired up by the teachers, which at least would have reduced the anxiety. Instead, boys were told to choose a girl — a humiliating experience for those chosen last or not at all. In seventh grade, I was already 6 feet tall, the tallest girl in my entire class, and taller than nearly every boy, putting me at risk of being among the unchosen.

Well, he chose me, even though we hardly knew each other. That dance class was our one significant encounter, one that we each walked away from believing the other had been the rescuer.

Now we were no longer schoolchildren; we were 27. And here, out of the blue, came a Facebook message from him reminiscing about the trauma of us being forced to learn ballroom dancing during our most awkward years. The anxiety of being lined up against the wall, waiting to see if someone would choose us or if we would be randomly assigned to join another couple when the numbers didn’t even out. The relief of a friendly face to make the experience a little less harrowing.

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Maybe that’s all it was supposed to be — a moment of gratitude for being each other’s friendly face. But it wasn’t.

We started talking more, about where our lives were now, where we were headed, how he ended up moving to Australia, my plans to make the jump out of the United States the following year.

When I said I didn’t know how I would carry over my career abroad, he sent me a dozen different ideas. When I told him that I didn’t want to miss out on some of my family’s eventual milestones — weddings, babies and so on — he argued those milestones never have an end date: “You come back for what’s important.” When I sighed over visa eligibility, he sent me information on all the places I was currently eligible and encouragement about how worthwhile it would be.

He chipped away at all of my excuses. At the time, I didn’t have anyone in my life who understood the unconventional path I wanted to take. I had more people tugging on my shirtsleeve telling me to hang around for at least this last bachelorette party, or through that next promotion, or, from my then roommate, just one more year on our lease. He was the first one to call me out for dragging my heels.

And maybe that’s all it was supposed to be — a spark of inspiration from someone who was doing what I wanted to do and encouraged me to follow through on my own dreams. But it wasn’t.

He was coming back to the United States in a few weeks and would be in Chicago, so we decided to meet for drinks and catch up on old times we never had. He took the train downtown from his parents’ house in the suburbs. His mother had made him change his shirt and take an earlier train so he wouldn’t be late to meet me. We sat at a bar and ordered flights of craft beer, and he reluctantly played along with my beer flight rules of sipping each one and voting on our favorites.

We talked about his life in Australia and his plans to go to New Zealand and then Antarctica and then Ireland and then Norway and then Germany and then the Falkland Islands. He gave me more advice and seemed genuinely excited for me, a rare investment from a guy who, despite our being in the same grade growing up, and the same dance class, was essentially a stranger. I noticed that I decompressed around him, that I could be myself without consequence.

And maybe that’s all it was supposed to be — a mini middle-school reunion. But it wasn’t.

I left him at the train station, telling him to get home safe as he recited back a very friend zoning “yes, ma’am,” wishing he had tried to kiss me. It was almost something.

A week and a few flirty texts later, we decided to meet one last time before he got back to his life in Australia. He again came in by train, we went out for drinks, talked, then more drinks and more talking.

This time I did not get left standing on the platform wanting more. He stayed over and we had a great night. A perfect night. A spontaneous night with no expectations or early-dating confusion or time to overthink things. It was comfortable and natural and just happened.

And maybe that’s all it was supposed to be — a one-night stand. But it wasn’t.

I kept waiting for the moment he would move on. He returned to Australia, and now we were trying to keep in touch across a massive time difference, and nothing more was ever promised. How long would it take him to get bored?

The men I dated always timed out at about two months — usually in concert with a statement of having met someone new. But with this man, two months passed, then six, then nine, and we were still talking almost every day. Never in a way that pointed to a serious relationship, but certainly as more than just friends. I now knew his 15-year plan, his thoughts on marriage and past relationships, how he spent his summers on the farm, his poetic prowess and his irrational hatred of the movie “Frozen.”

He knew about my dream to ditch my job and travel the world, my depressing music obsession, and every phrase that made me blush. It felt like this could actually be something. It felt like maybe, just maybe, it was even becoming something. I hoped that one day we would get a chance to find out.

A year later, in February 2020, we saw each other in person again, meeting at a hotel in Chicago, a pit stop before his next contract sent him somewhere else far away. This time there were expectations, confusion and plenty of time to overthink — at least on my end. But once we were together, I got swept into that comfortable space again. We wasted no time and fell into bed, only leaving the room to meet the takeout delivery guy in the lobby.

When we decided to go to sleep, he kept checking to see if I had dozed off yet; he wanted to avoid drifting off on me while I was awake. In part, I knew he was seeing if he was in the clear to uncuddle, since he has the body heat of a bear.

Early on, I’d told him on a call that I understood how cuddling turns to sweltering really fast, but that I’m a sucker for holding hands. I could almost see his eyes roll through the phone.

That night, I pretended to be asleep for one of his check-ins, so I was aware when he unfolded himself from me, then fumbled around under the covers until he found my hand and held it for the rest of the night.

A few weeks later the world was in Covid-19 lockdown, and he shipped out to New York to work as a travel nurse. Our communication started to get spotty as he worked long hours in a job so intense that I am unable to fathom it. And it stayed that way for months, with me trying to walk the line between pick-me-up texts and not being annoying, and with him politely replying every so often.

And then it happened. The moment I had been anticipating for the first two months, then six, then nine. He met someone new. Someone he was really excited about who he could see himself traveling the world with and trying to turn into a real relationship.

Just like that, I was right back at the train station, watching him walk away, wondering if this is all it was supposed to be. Another almost something.

From the start, I had tried to keep my expectations in check, telling myself there was a 99.999 percent chance it would end exactly this way, with him meeting someone and moving on. After all, for me it had never not happened that way. And this relationship was more logistically challenged than any I’d had before. But that .001 percent chance had never felt more possible. And I gave myself permission to be excited about him.

And maybe that’s all it was supposed to be — me actually opening my heart again. Because in the end, that’s all it was. Another almost something. And I’m so sick of almost somethings.

Jessie McNellis is a writer living in Chicago.

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