It had all started innocently enough. We had met online. On Reddit actually. I had made a post that was moderately humorous. He made a wickedly funny comment in response to it. I responded in a rather mischievous way. His reply was intriguing and revealed that he lived surprisingly close by.
Then, we continued our conversation over DMs. It was light-hearted, charming, and sometimes slightly flirtatious, though never overtly sexual or scandalous. There was, after all, a nearly than 20-year age gap between us. Our lives were completely at odds. I was a 41-year-old divorced mother of two and the acquisitions editor of a major publishing house. He was a 23-year-old university dropout, working in a hobby and games shop that hosted Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. The thought that we could be anything more than casual *online* friends was absurd!
But then, we decided to meet *in real life*. For lunch and a movie. After all, we had discovered that we shared many things in common. We both enjoyed Japanese food, listening to acid jazz, and reading cosy British murder mysteries. And there was a new movie coming out, based on a book that we had both enjoyed reading. We both agreed that we should have lunch and then go and watch the movie *together*. It only made sense, after all.