Your Intuition Guided you Here - Part 4

From that night on, Tall Guy and I became pretty much inseparable.

If he was invited somewhere, everyone knew I was coming too.

If I was invited somewhere, everyone assumed he’d be there.

We’d stay up talking on the beach, staring at the stars.

I’d sit outside the restaurant where he worked after closing, the two of us sitting across from each other for hours, talking shit, laughing and trying to solve the mysteries of the universe.

 

He’d walk me into work and the regulars would immediately start.

“Oh my God, Aussie! Is that your boyfriend?”

“Yep.”

Was he actually my boyfriend?

No fucking idea.

But saying yes was significantly easier than explaining whatever the hell this was, and it stopped the patrons from interrogating me.

So boyfriend it was.

Apparently.

 

Then one day my phone rang.

I’d finally gotten myself a Canadian SIM card, so Tall Guy and I had entered the technological age, well I had.

I answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey. I just wanted to know if you were thinking about me.”

I laughed.

Actually, I had been.

“Yes.”

“Okay. That’s all. I just wanted to confirm that.”

“Okay…”

Click.

He hung up.

I stared at the phone.

Then started laughing.

Who the hell was this guy?

 

So a few days later I realised I left something on the bench and said to my boss at work. 

"Hey watch this". 

Then I made this like "thinking face" but I was sending tall guy a message via ESP or telepathy.

I told my boss what I was doing and he pissed himself laughing.

"You're a weirdo Aussie"

10 mins later Tall guy walks through the door. 

"You wanted this"

Thanks

He leaves and my boss's bottom jaw needed to be etched off the floor.

 

Then Tall guy and I, we moved in together. Sort of.

By then, I’d started to outgrow hostel life.

Living with backpackers is brilliant… until suddenly it isn’t.

I wanted my own space, so I moved into what Canadians called a bachelor suite.

Which sounded significantly more glamorous than it actually was.

 

There wasn’t even a bedroom.

It was basically one room. A kitchen. A Bathroom.

 

Tall Guy, meanwhile, was getting pretty bloody sick of sleeping on somebody else’s couch.

So eventually I said:

“If you want to stay with me, you can.”

There wasn’t much room.

But honestly?

I liked having him there.

 

There was something about his presence that made me feel safe.

Part of that was physical. The bloke was 6 foot 8. Having him around certainly wasn’t hurting in the personal-security department.

But it was more than that.

It was the way he treated me.

With kindness.

With care.

With absolutely no pressure.

 

In fact, he had pushed zero sexual agenda.

To the point where eventually I started wondering:

Is this… weird?

Because this wasn’t what I was used to.

 

And somewhere amongst all those conversations, beach nights, walks to work and evenings together, something inside me started getting a little ahead of itself.

Wow.

Maybe this guy could actually be The One.

Oh, Larissa.

Enter: the bomb.

 

It was a Friday night.

We were at the bachelor suite, sitting together on the couch after watching a movie.

And things were starting to…

progress.

Oh.

OH.

 

One thing was leading to another and I remember thinking:

Holy shit. This could be the big moment.

 

And then, right in the middle of it, he looked at me and said:

“Oooh. You really love me.”

Excuse me?

“I wouldn’t go that far, mate.”

He loved when I called him mate in my Australian accent.

 

Then he looked at me and asked:

“What do you want from me?”

Well.

That changed the fucking atmosphere.

I went quiet.

What did he mean?

What did I want from him… tonight?

In general?

Was this a trick question?

 

Eventually I stumbled out:

“I think… a relationship?”

Then, because apparently we were ripping all the Band-Aids off tonight:

 

“Are you my boyfriend? I don’t actually know. We spend all our time together. It seems like that’s where this is going…”

Silence.

Awkward. Fucking. Silence.

 

A meteor could have hit the building and I don’t think either of us would have broken eye contact.

My heart had relocated itself somewhere around my throat.

For fuck’s sake.

Here it comes.

So I asked him.

 

“What do you want?”

It came out more like a croak.

I could already feel the tears waiting behind my eyes.

He looked at me.

“I want to be free.”

 

Right.

Of course.

That makes perfect sense.

Except I had no bloody idea what he was talking about.

“What? What do you mean?”

 

Then he said something I don’t think anyone had ever said to me before.

“You’re everything I would look for in a wife. I love how we have a deep connection, we get each other, we just work.”

Oh.

“But I’m not ready to settle down. I didn't think I would meet you so soon, at this age.  I want to be free.”

OH.

I didn’t know whether to be flattered or completely fucking shattered.

Apparently I was excellent wife material.

Just not excellent actual relationship material.

Cool.

 

“Okay. You’re free. I’m nobody to you.”

 

I choked back the tears.

And he left.

 

I sat there thinking:

What. The. Fuck.

This man had just essentially told me:

You could be my wife.

Followed immediately by:

Anyway, gotta go be free.

Make it make sense.

 

The next afternoon…

My phone rang.

Tall Guy.

“What are you doing tonight?”

I answered with all the warmth of a Canadian winter.

“Going out with my work friends.”

And I did.

 

I’d spent most of that day at work processing what had happened with my boss.

My new sort-of-boyfriend-who-apparently-wasn’t-my-boyfriend wanted to be free.

 

And I’d decided what that meant.

Free to date other women.

Fine.

He could.

But I wasn’t going to hang around auditioning for the position.

 

That night I went out with my friends.

Penticton wasn’t exactly overflowing with nightlife, so there were only a handful of places anyone went.

And sure enough…

Tall Guy appeared.

He was ridiculously happy to see me.

“I came to see you.”

Nope.

I’d rehearsed this speech all bloody day and this man was about to hear it.

“Mate, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

There it was.

I’d nailed the opening. My boss gives me the thumbs up like, You did it!!!

 

“If you want to date multiple people, that’s fine. I’m happy for you. Go have fun. Meet someone.

“But that’s not what I want.

“I don’t want to date multiple people at the same time. So if that’s what you want, we’re not doing this.”

 

He looked at me.

“Okay.”

Well.

 

Glad we’d cleared that up.

And then…

He came home with me anyway. He said "I don't know why I said that last night"

Because apparently this situation wasn’t remotely confusing enough yet.

“I want to be free.”

 

Over the next few weeks, Tall Guy tried to explain what he meant.

He didn’t want to feel tied down.

Because, in his mind, being tied down was the very thing that might eventually make him want to seek something outside the relationship.

 

At the time, I still didn’t completely understand it.

It wasn’t until months later that he told me more about his family.

His father had been married three times and had cheated in each of those relationships, leaving shattered families and children in his wake. 

 

And suddenly I remember thinking:

Oh.

This is where this is coming from.

There was a story underneath the story.

A fear underneath the words.

I want to be free.

 

So I made a decision.

“Let’s just be friends. JUST FRIENDS”

 

He could stay with me.

Because despite this bizarre little emotional clusterfuck we’d managed to create…

I genuinely liked his company.

I liked our conversations.

I liked having him around.

 

And somewhere underneath it all, I still trusted the strange internal compass that had brought me here in the first place. It did not make sense at all but I decided to trust it but should I?

Except now there was a question I couldn’t ignore.

A pretty fucking big one.

How could my intuition have gotten this so wrong?

Or…

Did it?

 

Over the following weeks and months, I started learning more about Tall Guy.

 

One thing became very clear:

The man valued honesty.

I mean really valued honesty.

To the point of brutality.

If he didn’t like you, you knew about it.

If he disagreed with something, you knew about it.

 

If he thought something, there was a fairly good chance the thought was going to exit his mouth approximately three seconds later.

There wasn’t a lot of:

Should I say this?

Will this hurt someone’s feelings?

Maybe I should just keep the peace.

Nope.

Tall Guy would just fucking say it. Besides the being free thing, him and I got on like a house on fire.

 

This trait was something I simultaneously admired…

and despised.

 

Because at that point in my life, I definitely did not operate that way.

And then one day he came home from work.

 

Remember, at this point we were friends.

At least officially.

I’d pulled myself back.

There was no way I was making myself that vulnerable again.

My heart had gone back behind the armour, thank you very much.

 

He walked in and casually announced:

“Oh, I’m seeing that chick from work. Harmony.”

Of course he was.

“Oh yeah? Big boobs? Blonde hair?”

“Yep.”

“Good luck with that. Have fun.”

Very cool, Larissa.

Very casual.

Very I absolutely don’t give a shit who you’re dating.

 

Except somewhere underneath all that nonchalance, another little piece of me broke.

And another little piece of armour quietly clicked into place.

 

Then, about a month later…

Tall Guy had to travel to his home province for one of his friend’s weddings.

He was the best man.

 

And he asked me to go with him.

I looked at him.

“Um what, why are you asking me? Why don’t you take your bimbo girlfriend, Harmony?”

Yes.

I was handling the situation with tremendous maturity.

He looked completely unfazed.

 

“I was just dating her to see if my instincts were right.”

Excuse me?

“And what were your instincts?”

“That she’d get boring really quickly.”

Pause.

“And she did. So if my instincts are right about her they're right about you”

 

Jesus Christ.

There was that brutal honesty again.

 

Then he said:

“I want you to come. I want you to meet my family and my friends.”

I stared at him.

“Why?”

“Because I want you with me.”

Right.

Of course.

Perfectly clear.

Not confusing whatsoever.

 

“All right. Whatever.”

And by whatever, I obviously meant:

Yes, I will travel across Canada with you to a wedding, meet your entire family and pretend this is a completely normal thing for two people who are JUST FRIENDS to do.

So I went.

Meet the family

I met his friends.

I met his grandparents.

I met his younger brother, who was awesome.

I met his mum, who was one of the most beautiful women.

She loved me.

I loved her.

I even loved their bloody dog.

And Tall Guy?

He was standing beside his best mate as best man in a tuxedo looking…

annoyingly good.

 

Pretty cute, actually.

Did I tell him that?

Absolutely fucking not.

The armour was staying ON.

I wasn’t flirting.

I wasn’t leaning into anything.

I wasn’t making myself vulnerable again. Quite obnoxious at times actually. I was proud of myself

 

But internally I kept thinking:

This is weird.

Because this didn’t exactly feel like friendship.

And apparently Tall Guy was starting to think the same thing.

 

On the way back to Penticton…

Out of nowhere, he said:

“I think I love you.”

 

UM. WHAT?

I looked at him.

“Okay, this is just weird.”

Because what the hell was I supposed to do with that?

 

A few weeks earlier this man wanted to BE FREE.

Now we’d just returned from a trip where he’d introduced me to his family and closest friends and he was casually dropping:

I think I love you.

“I don’t know what to think,” I told him.

And I genuinely didn’t.

There was too much uncertainty.

Too much hurt.

Too much What the fuck are we actually doing here?

 

Then, because apparently telling me he loved me wasn’t enough for one conversation, he added:

“And you love me too. I can tell.”

 

Oh, can you now?

Maybe I did.

Maybe I didn’t.

I wasn’t particularly interested in finding out while my heart was still hiding inside its newly reinforced bunker.

Then he told me he didn’t want to be with anyone else.

Out of respect for me.

Good.

Progress.

Sort of.

 

Because Tall Guy being Tall Guy, he still wanted to explain his philosophy.

He believed you could have sex with someone without loving them, wanting a relationship with them, or having some deep emotional attachment.

 

“Have you ever shagged someone you didn’t actually want a relationship with?”

“Well… yeah. Of course.”

“See?”

Damn it.

I hated when his arguments made sense.

 

But then came another one.

One that hit a belief I didn’t even realise I was carrying.

 

“I don’t ever want to get married.”

WHAT THE HELL?

Now that I couldn’t compute.

 

Because somewhere along the way, I’d picked up a very simple equation:

If someone really loves you, they’ll want to marry you.

Therefore:

If they don’t want to marry you, they don’t really love you.

Where did I learn that?

No bloody idea.

Family?

Movies?

Fairy tales?

Culture?

Probably a lovely cocktail of all of them.

But I believed it.

Completely.

There was no nuance.

 

No possibility that someone could deeply love another person and simply not place the same meaning on marriage that I did.

It was black.

Or white.

Love.

Or not love.

Marriage.

Or rejection.

 

And Tall Guy was about to start blowing that belief apart.

Which brings me back to intuition.

 

At the time, I thought my intuition had been nudging me towards Tall Guy.

And because I was romantically involved with Tall Guy, my mind did what minds do.

It gave that nudge a meaning.

Maybe he’s The One.

Maybe this is why I came to Penticton.

Maybe this is where this whole intuitive breadcrumb trail has been leading.

But perhaps my intuition hadn’t said any of that.

I had.

 

That’s the distinction I couldn’t see at 25.

My intuition may have nudged me towards an experience.

My mind decided what that experience was supposed to mean.

And there’s a big fucking difference.

Because that belief about marriage?

 

Tall Guy helped blow it to smithereens.

And thank God he did.

 

More than twenty years later, I’m with the man I love. We have two beautiful children and a life we’ve built together.

And we’re not married.

 

Marriage simply doesn’t hold the meaning for me today that 25-year-old Larissa believed it had to.

Back then, I thought:

If he doesn’t want to marry me, he doesn’t really love me.

 

Today, I know that love, commitment and the life two people build together can’t be reduced to one particular structure, piece of paper or ceremony.

That rigid belief needed challenging.

 

And apparently intuition had found me a 6-foot-8 Canadian wrecking ball to help with the demolition.

 

But marriage wasn’t the biggest belief Tall Guy was about to blow apart.

There was another one.

Something I’d believed for years.

Something that had shaped how I saw myself, other people and my relationships.

And when Tall Guy held a mirror up to that one…

Fuck.

There was no putting it back together.

To be continued…

 

---

 

Before we move on Let's recap

Looking back now, I can see what I couldn’t possibly see then.

I thought my intuition was leading me towards a man.

So naturally, my meaning-making brain decided what that must mean.

Oh. This must be THE guy.

 

And then when the relationship didn’t unfold the way I thought it should, I questioned the guidance.

Did I get it wrong?

Did I mistake something else for intuition?

If my intuition really brought me here to meet him, why the fuck is it this complicated?

 

But I was judging something enormous through the tiny window of what I could see at 25.

Intuition isn’t necessarily operating within that tiny window.

 

It doesn’t only have to be about this person, this relationship, this decision or this outcome.

 

Sometimes we don’t understand the significance of an experience until years or even decades later.

Because maybe Tall Guy wasn’t there to become my forever person.

 

Maybe he was there, in part, to be a zig to my zag.

I had spent much of my life learning to be nice.

Be polite.

Don’t upset people.

Say yes when sometimes you really want to say no.

Consider how everyone else will feel before you say what you actually think.

Tall Guy lived at almost the opposite end of that spectrum.

Truth mattered to him more than whether the truth landed comfortably.

Sometimes way more. 😂

His honesty could be brutal. I admired it and despised it in almost equal measure.

But weirdly, it also made me trust him.

I never had to wonder whether he was secretly thinking something else.

If Tall Guy thought it, chances were you were going to bloody hear about it.

I didn’t need to become him.

But perhaps I needed someone so far on the other side to pull me a little closer towards the middle.

 

And then there was marriage.

At 25, I’d somehow tied being chosen for marriage to being worthy of love.

If someone truly loves me, they’ll want to marry me.

It wasn’t just an opinion.

I’d made it mean something about me.

 

Tall Guy challenged that too.

And all these years later, I’m in the most loving relationship of my life.

We’ve lived through many seasons together. We’ve built a life. We have two beautiful children.

We aren’t married.

 

And I love this man deeply.

He loves me deeply.

The absence of a wedding has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of love or my worth in any way.

Twenty-five-year-old me couldn’t see that.

 

She couldn’t see beyond the edge of what she currently knew.

And maybe that’s one of the greatest difficulties with intuition.

 

We ask something that may be operating across the landscape of our lives to prove itself within the few metres we can currently see.

 

Then we label it right or wrong according to whether the immediate outcome matches the meaning we gave it.

 

My intuition may have nudged me towards Tall Guy.

But my intuition never told me why.

 

My brain filled that bit in.

And as it turned out, Tall Guy wasn’t finished blowing holes through the things I thought I knew about myself.

Not even close.

There was more.