He wants to, but….
Three weeks later he’s sitting at the bar while I’m working. In the past weeks we’ve had a lot of contact via Hyves (a Dutch social networking site, from pre-Facebook days). I now know that he’s divorced and has 2 children. Max is 12 and Bo is 10. I’ve long since thrown out all of my criteria. I’m infatuated, that’s for sure! None of it is important any more. Well, apart from one thing…. This is the second time we’ve seen each other. He’s drinking mint tea with honey (I told him I find it delicious). Everyone who comes in and sees him sitting there is laughing and teasing him. I don’t think he drinks this very often. Maybe he likes me too?! Oooh, the early stages are always so difficult! I’d forgotten that. 🙂
We talk about this and that, in between me serving drinks because I am still the barkeeper. As things get busier it gets more difficult. I’m constantly worried that he’ll leave, but he just keeps sitting there. It’s Thursday and he does have to work tomorrow, so I keep thinking: now he’s going to tell me he’s leaving. Luckily it doesn’t get too busy and it’s not difficult to keep convincing him to have ‘just one more beer’ (in later years I’ll find this pretty irritating, but at this moment I’m really happy about it!). The conversation gets more serious and it looks like we’ll be planning in a first date soon. Yay! And in the meantime I’m thinking about how on earth I can tell him I really want children, without scaring him off or giving him the idea that I’m a desperate 30-something woman, with a loudly ticking biological clock! Now, I can definitely hear that biological clock ticking loudly, but I’m far from desperate! I want children, but not at any cost and I certainly don’t plan to jump the first vaguely suitable man I find. But I do really want children and I don’t see the point of dating someone if he knows that he genuinely doesn’t want (more) children. Right now I can still say, “It was nice knowing you, goodbye,” but if we start dating it’ll get harder and harder. I really want to say something now, but how?! I keep putting it off, but eventually I decide to just say it. When I start, the whole story comes out and after a small break I say, “would you want more children?” but when he fails to answer me immediately I keep on babbling: “It’s not that I’m planning to jump on you right now, but I really, really want to be a mom.” I just keep babbling and Denny is trying not to laugh at me, but then he turns more serious. He says, “I don’t know what the future will bring and I can’t give a definite yes or no answer to a question like that.” Hmm, that’s a bit of a vague answer, but it’s not a no… and he’s a man. I do understand that he – especially since he already has 2 kids – does not have the same biological clock issues as I have! The longer I think about it, the happier I am with his answer. There’s potential here! I’m happy. “When are we going on a date?” We pick a date to have dinner together. Brilliant! I’m looking forward to it already!
We keep chatting and suddenly he says, “I do have to tell you something else. After Bo and Max were born, I had a vasectomy…. but…” I don’t hear the ‘but’, just ‘vasectomy’?! That’s a snip, a snip which prevents having any more children in the future! Now what?