They say that love finds you when you least expect it, and boy, can I vouch for that. Fall semester of my sophomore year, I studied abroad in London, and as any girl would in a place full of hot accents and even hotter football players, I got on Tinder.
I had always dreamed of going to London and falling in love with a British guy who would sweep me off my feet, just like how you see in the movies. I went on a few dates, but nothing had stuck. About halfway through the semester, I just gave up. I figured maybe it wasn’t meant to be, maybe I wasn’t supposed to get swept off my feet. Not even a week after having this thought, I met Liam.
I had been talking to this guy for a couple of months, but I had never expected anything to come out of it. After all I had given up on British men. The first thing he said to me was that “You look like you’d be a good laugh.” He was funny, attractive and although I didn’t know it at the time, I was excited to talk to him. He had something about him that just made everything between us very relaxed and easy, and I had never even met him!
It was the week after I came back from Greece when we decided to meet up. We met at Victoria Station in the serial killers section of W.H. Smith (I thought it would be funny). When I first looked at him in person, the single word that popped into my mind was, “Wow.” He was even more attractive in person and his accent was to die for, and that was only the beginning.
I wasn’t nervous at all, which was shocking for me, actually all I felt was excited and happy to see him. We started off or date that Sunday by going on a tour bus, and yes, I mean the exact kind that you see in the movies. We got on, sat down and just talked about everything from what countries I had been to so far to our dogs that had passed away. It was an interesting conversation, but the fact that we could talk about stuff like that the first day of meeting each other was oddly comforting.
Five minutes later, we got off the bus partly because it was too cold, and partly because we didn’t care what Roman had built what bridge. We began walking around when we saw the London Tombs, and decided to go inside. The setup was a mix of a museum and a haunted house and he happened to be the leader, which resulted in me trying to hide in his sweatshirt when things popped out and him trying to shove me in front of him because he didn’t wanna walk toward the creepy people that had disappeared. Safe to say, we ran out of that place when we got to the end and saw the guy with the chainsaw.
Next, we got lunch at a coffee shop and we were in the middle of talking when he asked me on a second date. I couldn’t believe it. First, I had never had such a unique date with anyone, nor had as much fun on one. Second, we were only halfway through the first one and he had already wanted to see me again! I was so stupidly happy, of course I said yes.
Our next stops were the M&M store in Leicester Square and the tiny Christmas village, both of which consisted of him trying on hats to make me laugh and me taking pictures because it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. It started getting late and even colder when we were walking and decided to go into this café that looked cute, and more importantly, warm.
It was the National Gallery café, and of course since the National Gallery is free, we went in and walked around. We laughed at the paintings, picked out our favorite ones, told each other very obnoxiously artsy opinions about what we thought was happening in each one. He even tried to touch one and got screamed at by security. We decided to leave after that and when we got back to Victoria, we stopped to get tea and ended up talking for another hour or so. Afterwards he walked me to my bus stop, we went in for a kiss, and I accidentally hit him in the face with my hat. We tried again and it was perfect.
I had never expected to meet a guy like Liam in all my life. He was interesting and exciting and being with him made me feel so alive. That same guy is now my boyfriend of three months. See that’s the thing, when you stop looking for love, it finds you. You can’t rush it, and you can’t let it control you. With him, I was completely myself and he loved that about me. You have to wait, and I promise good things and good people will come along and you will be so stupidly happy that you won’t even remember what it was like to not have that person in your life.
