NINE

"Shelagh?"

At the sound of her name, Shelagh turned around to see a man approaching. She was taken aback at first, as this man did not look particularly like his profile picture, but she knew that it had to be him because who how else would this strange man have known her name—and known to find her at the exact spot they agreed to meet. "Jonathan?" she asked.

He smiled, which finally sparked her recognition. She supposed she could understand why his profile picture was from a few years earlier when he weighed less and before his head was shaved, but it was a bit misleading. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to let it spoil their meal together.

"It's so nice to meet you."

"It's—ah, oh, um, nice to meet you too," she said, stammering a bit when he swooped in for a hug before she was prepared.

"Did you find the place OK?" he asked, referring to the sports bar he'd chosen for their first date.

"Yes, no problems at all."

"Great," he said before leading the way into the restaurant where he requested to sit at the bar, which Shelagh found a bit odd as it would be more challenging for them to have a conversation due to the noise and higher chance of interruptions than they would have had at a table, but she didn't question him.

"First round is on me, okay?" he said as they each took a stood and he flagged down the bartender. "What can I get you?"

"Oh, I'll just have a coke, thank you."

He eyed her suspiciously for a moment but then ordered her coke and a beer for himself. After their drinks were provided, he asked, "So you're a nurse, right? Do you like it?"

"Oh yes. I've wanted to be a nurse ever since I was a child and I really love it. Do you enjoy teaching?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "It's nice to have the summers off, but kids kind of suck, you know? I guess the bright side is that it taught me I never want kids of my own."

"Yes, I suppose that is a good thing to know about yourself," she said positively, though inside she was disappointed. Since she definitely did want a child (or maybe two, but certainly not seven like her parents), that removed Jonathan from her list of potential boyfriends. His profile said that he was "possibly" open to having children, which was why she had not ruled him out before, but she was glad to have learned that fact on their first date rather than later so no more of their time would be wasted.

"Since I'm a teacher, I always like to ask people what their favorite subject in school was. What's yours?" Jonathan asked her.

"Oh…well, I'm not sure I really had one. That is, I did not go to a public school when I was younger; I was homeschooled."

His brow wrinkled. "Homeschooled. Like your mom taught you?"

"Um, no, it was actually a neighbor. She taught her children, myself and my siblings, and then another family's children. I suppose it was almost like a regular classroom since there were seventeen of us, though we were all different ages."

Jonathan practically choked on his beer. "Seventeen kids? From three families?"

"Yes."

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Six."

He laughed. "Holidays at your parent's house must be nuts! Are you the oldest, youngest, or in the middle?"

"Oldest, but I don't celebrate holidays with them. They, ah, live far away. So, ah, what was your favorite subject in school?"

"Gym class," he said with a smirk. "I was a really active kid so my favorite time of the day was when I could get up and move around. My second favorite was history, though, which is why I teach that now."

"That's nice that you get to teach something you enjoy a lot. What type of history is your favorite?"

"The Revolutionary War, which is why I love that I live so close to Valley Forge. I got there all the time to walk around and explore."

"Oh, was that an important site in Revolutionary War history?"

Jonathan blinked at her. "Um, yeah. Like, really important. Do—do you not know anything about the Revolutionary War?"

Feeling the heat of embarrassment creep into her cheeks, she confessed, "Um, not much. I didn't learn too much American history. Is that the war that George Washington fought in?"

Jonathan laughed. "Yeah, among many other things. You really didn't learn any of that in school? What were you taught?"

"Oh, um, regular things like reading and math, just not a lot of American history." Shelagh did not feel like revealing the truth: the only reason she'd been taught to read, was so that she could read from the Bible, which had been the basis for most of her education, and the only reason she'd been taught any math, was so that she could appropriately adapt recipes to cook and feed a large family. Selling her family's extra produce at the summer farmer's market had taught her that there was much to learn outside of Bible teachings and basic math, but she hadn't been able to experience any of it until she'd escaped from her family.

"Strange. I never met anyone who didn't learn any American history before."

As an attempt to save face, she added quickly, "Well, I, um, know about the Civil War; I've watched a few documentaries on that."

He laughed and said, "Well that's something at least." With that, he finished the last of his beer, placed it on the bar and said, "Ready for round two? Or should we order some apps?"

"Um," Shelagh hesitated and looked down at her coke, which was still two-thirds full, "maybe we could get something to eat first."

He nodded and reached for one of the menus that had been left on the bar. "Oh, cool, they have this one microbrew I've been wanting to try. Are you more of a beer person or a wine person? Or do you just drink White Claws—haha, no judgement!" he added with a rather fake-sounding laugh.

"Oh, honestly, I don't really drink."

He dropped the menu and looked over at her. "You don't drink? Like, ever?"

She shook her head and he looked at her as though she'd said she'd never seen it raining outside.

"Oh, well. I guess this isn't really going to work out then." He stood from the stool he sat on and pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

"You—oh—really?" she responded, rather stunned at his sudden actions. She did not see a future with him either because he did not want children, but she had not anticipated her choice not to drink alcohol to be so divisive.

"Yeah, you're nice and all, but," he paused to drop a fifteen dollars onto the bar, enough to cover both their drinks and a tip, "I can't be with someone who I can't drink with at least some of the time. Bye, Shelagh."

He disappeared so quickly that she could barely process his words let alone say goodbye to him. She continued to sit for another few seconds, then quickly stood up, grabbed her purse, and hurried out into the parking lot. This was, she feared, not the last time someone would be so off-put by her lack of drinking, but perhaps that was one of the questions she needed to ask before setting up a date with someone—especially I their suggested date was to meet at a bar. That way, she wouldn't waste her time—or anyone else's—again.

On Friday night, Patrick sat on the sofa with his laptop balanced on his thighs as he searched through local Facebook postings looking for something to do with Timothy the following day. He still felt guilty over not being able to do anything with him the previous Saturday due to a virtual conference he'd needed to attend. At least the boy had been able to spend six hours with Shelagh while he'd hold up in his office trying to focus on the lectures instead of wondering what was going on in the other room to cause such raucous laughter. (He later found it was Shelagh putting on different voices for his Lego characters, which Tim had evidently found hilarious despite Shelagh insisting she wasn't purposely trying to be that funny.)

Patrick continued to scroll through various event listings, scrunching up his nose at some, and flagging some others to go back and review to see if his son might be interested in them. As he did this, he heard his phone chime with a notification message, so he picked it up and glanced down at the screen. The notification indicated a message from Shelagh, who he had not seen or spoken to since she was leaving his place the previous Saturday.

Curious, he pulled up their text conversation on his phone.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Of course! He replied immediately.

He went back to searching for a fee listing on one of the local fall festivals until his phone chimed again. When he looked at the screen, he saw that Shelagh had sent him what looked like a screenshot of a conversation inside of a dating app. A moment later, a second image came through, which appeared to be a continuation of the conversation in the first one. Expanding the image on his screen so he could better see the small text, he scanned the conversation.

Shelagh: I would want to wait until I was comfortable

Brad: How long would that be? A few weeks?

Shelagh: I'm really not sure; it would depend

Brad: can you guess

Shelagh: maybe six months?

Brad: LOL are u serious?

Shelagh: yes

Brad: no guy is ever gonna wait that long for sex byyyyeeee

Patrick cringed to himself as he returned to the text message page and saw the triple dot bubbles indicating someone was typing appear and disappear several times before her message finally came through.

Is this true? Katie (roommate) says it isn't, but I'd like a man's POV. Please.

Patrick put let his left hand, which held the phone, fall limp against his lap as he considered how to best respond to Shelagh. While of course it was completely untrue to give a qualifier that "no one" would ever agree to wait a few months to have sex in a relationship, he wanted to give a more complete answer. He supposed the question was more how unreasonable her request would be or how unlikely would the average man be to agree with it.

Thinking through his past relationships, Patrick realized that save his first two relationships in high school, during which no sex was had, he had never dated anyone for six months without having sex. But, he asked himself, did that categorically mean he would not wait? Sex, or more specifically sexual compatibility, was very important in a relationship, but it was not the most important thing. For instance, one could have very satisfying sex with someone, but completely incompatible in the way they wanted to raise children or manage their finances. Granted, the reverse could also be true, which was why he would never want to be with anyone long-term with whom he was not sexually compatible.

Not wanting Shelagh to wait too long for a reply, Patrick decided that he would indeed be willing to wait such a period of time if the person he was with was perfect for him in every other way, but he acknowledged that scenario would be a very rare one indeed.

I imagine there will be many men turned off by that, but saying no man would wait is certainly incorrect. I think the key, just like with all things, is communication. It could be difficult to put a very specific deadline on something like that, but checking in every so often would be key to maintaining the relationship and keeping it moving forward

Her reply came a minute later. You mean, if we weren't communicating about how we felt all along, if we reached six months and I wasn't ready, that would be problematic

He let out a huff of breath as he returned, Well, if you haven't reached that level of comfort with someone after six months, maybe you shouldn't be with them at all

The triple dot bubble appeared and disappeared several times before her reply came. But what if I wanted to wait until marriage?

"Oh," he said to himself, feeling slightly bad for his previous response. If he'd known that was her point of view, he wouldn't have been so blunt. Well, that's different, he told her.

Different how?

You'd have to be more up front about that. Remember when we talked about when you might bring up looking for something serious that would lead to marriage? It would be a similar conversation to that.

Makes sense. Thanks.

He moved to put his phone beside him, but then thought better of it and typed up one last message. You also might want to try a more religious focused dating app-there might be some more like-minded men there

She reacted to his message with a thumbs up, but didn't send any further messages.

Patrick found his thoughts drifting back to that conversation with Shelagh for the rest of the evening, since each new thing he learned about her served only to cause him more fascination and intrigue. Thinking through all the puzzle pieces of her life that he knew to date—that she was homeschooled, that she had never been on a date, nor had she ever kissed anyone—and now coupling those with this new revelation that she might want to wait until marriage to have sex, he could only conclude that she had a very religious upbringing. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. Just because he was not raised with anything more than a we-will-go-to-church-on-Christmas-and-Easter approach to religion did not mean his views were right and others were wrong or the opposite. He did find it interesting that Shelagh did not seem particularly religious at the moment. They'd never spoken about it specifically, but she had mentioned weekend activities several times and never included church in them, which left him wondering. Technically, it was not his business, so it was possible he would never be able to find out whether she had a strict religious upbringing, but he did hope to learn more about her, as nearly everything he found out was simply fascinating.