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Travel. I love to travel. It broadens the mind, expands the soul and feeds my need to feel untethered. I do not travel enough. I work and have but four short weeks available for leisure. I have a short budget too. That aside, my intention as my life unfolds and circumstances and demands shift is to spend more of my leisure time travelling. My intention is also to share my travels with a significant other. The crux of the matter then is that any prospective significant other ought to be partial to travel too.
Another of my sifting criteria then, when assessing a date application, is whether or not the applicant is "well-travelled". At the tender age of 50 if one has not ventured forth for whatever reason, then one can safely extrapolate that the likelihood of the applicant ever doing so is remote. Suffice to say, "well-travelled" is one of my red flags, a bit like an economic indicator: inflation rates hint at interest rates which hint at exchange rates ... Not well-travelled hints at me, too.
John29 met the criteria. He said he was well-travelled. That is, he interpreted his traveling portfolio as being in the "well-travelled" camp. Like I do. I was excited. I may well have found my travelling companion.
John29 invited me to meet him at possibly the singularly most unromantic, uninspiring, below par venue; a local beer garden near my then home. That should have been enough of a warning signal. I removed my snob hat and pretended to myself that this was a throw back date to varsity days. Appropriately so, as it was likely that I would bump into at least one of my two teens in that very venue. As I said it is a varsity-style venue although it is frequented by 50-something wannabe-back-at varsity men. So unattractive.
John29 had a hearing issue. I had to keep repeating myself. I had to speak louder. I had to speak loudly. Even more loudly than I usually speak. That is loud. But, who needs to hear when travelling? Soaking in the atmosphere and the sites is the essence of the experience I explained to myself when picturing myself yelling at John29 in a bursting-to-capacity London underground tube. The folks around us would feel very uncomfortable.
John29 had been to Thailand. "How exotic!" I crowed. I have never been out East. I feasted on his adventure. "Where else have you ventured?" I invited John29 to continue his travel tales. He had said that he was "well-travelled" after all.
John29 had only ever been travelling once. To Thailand; seven years prior to our meeting. You see, John29 didn't really like travelling; it is so tiring and there are so many people ... John29 had no intention of going anywhere in a hurry again.
Au revoir John29!