I have a son from a previous relationship — Jackson, he was 2 at the time — and they met and just really hit it off.

Neither of us was looking for anything super-serious, but we kept hanging out regularly and it just kind of happened without either of us noticing.

He had met my son, so we had to ask: Do we have a future? I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I'm just going with it. But I liked him back, and he messaged me right away. If he seemed normal, we'd have a drink, rather than building up this idea of who he is. On the site we used, they have a question that asks the things you can't live without, and I wrote was bad for the eyes and something about the evil eye. I actually forgot his name — I only remembered that he was no. When I got home, he texted me that he was deleting his account, and I was like, OK. It was the beginning of summer in New York, and every weekend was busy.

I was supposed to be at the restaurant in 30 minutes.

When I met his eyes in the restaurant, my anxiety skyrocketed.

All I could do, during our routine discussion of our jobs and our interests, was nod my head at the right times and laugh when it seemed appropriate.