The Days We Met

I

We met at a local wine bar on a quiet street, the windows aglow with warm light in the chilly autumn night.

I was three minutes late. As per the Scandinavian stereotype, he was startlingly punctual, already seated at a cosy corner table by the time I arrived. He stood to greet me. Tall and slim, with shoulder-length blond hair, a well-kept beard and dark-framed glasses. I went in for a hug (I'd asked over text if that would be fine) and accidentally knocked my head against his.

I hadn't felt nervous about a first date in a while. Back home, I'd learned to navigate meeting new people with a casual ease that hid my intrinsic shyness. In an unfamiliar country, I lacked my usual ammunition for social connection: lived experiences from our shared environment, eloquence in the language, and the knowledge of and adherence to cultural norms.

In an attempt at a conversation topic, I asked him to teach me something about Sweden. His response came after a thoughtful pause: Lagom, meaning not too much, not too little—just the right amount.

He pushed our two wine glasses together. The amount of wine, he explained, could be described as such. But more than a term of measurement, lagom was a concept, a way of living in moderation.

I understood this in theory, but perhaps not in practice. A big-city girl, all my life had been quite the opposite of lagom: exams since eight or nine years old; tuition lessons on top of extracurriculars on top of supplementary classes—a constant pursuit of academic success that would determine our future from a young age. Then came adulthood: working a nine-to-seven, or eight, or ten. A social life was secondary, weekends merely a breather before the next sprint.

For hours, we talked about our disparate lives. He had grown up in a small nearby town, recently completed his master's degree, and gotten a job in HR. I had just left a job I hated, was visiting family in the city, and—I suppose in some ways—trying to find myself before starting a new job once I returned home. Ours would be a week-long fling, if anything (spoiler: this isn't a Hallmark movie).

He walked me to the bus stop at the end of the night, my coat doing little to block out the frigid air. Shadows cloaked the city, kindled by fairy lights wrapped around red-leafed trees and the flush of street lamps on cobblestone paths. My teeth were chattering too much to notice that he lingered while saying goodbye, his eyes searching my wind-bitten face for a signal that never came.

Realisation washed over me as I watched his retreating back, a wave of warmth melting away the ice in my veins. Was he thinking of...? Did he want to?

The question niggled at me on the ride back to my aunt's house, the gloomy roads delineating my reflection in the bus window. In my early twenties, I was still growing out of my teenage appearance, my sharpening features a stranger to the confused child I still felt like inside.

I got my answer while I tucked into bed for the night, my phone buzzing as his name lit up my screen in the darkness:

If I had asked to kiss you, would you have said yes?

II

We met in the late afternoon. I frowned when he suggested 5.30pm—just half an hour after his nine-to-five ended.

Are you sure? I texted back. I don't mind meeting later, in case you need to stay on for anything.

His reply was a simple: Yes, it's fine :)

Once again, that Scandinavian punctuality came through. He dropped off his bicycle at home and showered before coming to meet me, a spring in his step instead of the after-work weariness I'd expected.

It struck me with a strange and surprising force that outside my bubble, there was a world that existed where people stopped working at the time they were supposed to. Two months ago, I'd have had all eyes in the office on me if I packed up my things any earlier than 7pm.

The revelation haunted me for the rest of the days I spent there, during walks in the forests and through sunflower fields and around the little university town—everything a serene, picturesque contrast to the towering concrete and busy roads I was used to.

Who was I outside what society had taught me to be?

Did I really want to spend my life afraid of doing too little, constantly giving more, more, too much of myself away to my job, bound by skewed notions of duty and due diligence? Did I really have a choice, if I wanted to be able to survive on my own?

Quarter-life crises aside. Back to me and him.

In the week we spent getting to know each other, we took turns cooking meals at his place. He danced with me in the living room. He called me beautiful, a smile in his blue eyes as he leaned in. I met his housemate; for my sake, they spoke in English around me, save for a few lighthearted 'tack så mycket'-s and 'varsågod'-s.

He was polite, sweet, gentle. Formal with me, a side effect of the language barrier and his Swedish-ness, masking a fun, spontaneous side I only knew of through his stories.

But like I told you earlier, this isn't a Hallmark movie. I didn't leave my old life behind to start a new adventure nor did he rush to the airport with a moving confession, asking me to stay. We didn't see each other again before I left. I didn't tell him that I had extended my trip.

Back then, I'd only ever known two ways of loving someone: all or nothing. From a girl who'd experienced her share of heartbreak that year, this was nothing like that. Though bittersweet, we didn't shed tears when we parted ways, only exchanging sad, playful pouts. Our text conversations faded. Despite our limited time together, it had felt like just the right amount. Lagom.

A few days after we said our goodbyes, I met the person I would eventually fall truly, deeply in love with.

But that's a story for another time.

III

We met again in spring.

Winter was just ending, and the cherry blossoms had yet to bloom. The days were a slot machine of sun, rain, hail, and snow.

He had been at the company for half a year now. He loved his job; he was quite possibly the only person I knew who did, and I told him as much. We met for fika—a coffee break with a sweet treat—and promenaded in the city park after, my body much more steeled to the cold now.

Hazy sunlight broke through the rain clouds, and tiny flowers had sprouted in the grass beneath the barren trees. We stopped at a playground, sitting inside a wooden train too small for the two of us. His fingers intertwined with mine.

He asked me if I was seeing anyone. I wasn't. Too much had happened during the months since we met, and my heart had closed itself off. I was in the middle of upheaving my life, a process that had started with that first trip in October. Like back then, it wouldn't be long until I had to leave again.

We snuck onto the grounds of his old gymnasiet later on. His gaze dropped to my lips as he held me by the shoulders. This time, I noticed. I turned away.

We indulged in a long hug before saying goodbye, a sliver of affection between two lonely but mismatched souls.

That was the last time we saw each other.

In hindsight, I wonder if I poured a smidge too much into the wine glass by reaching out again, tipsy on a rose-tinted version of us. What we had wasn't love but an easy camaraderie tinged with mild infatuation. Whether it had the potential to be something more wasn't a hypothesis either of us tested, or one that ever kept me up at night.

Two years later, I think of him infrequently but fondly—those fleeting moments of romance that showed me the beauty of impermanence. I cherish the memories of that first Sweden trip, when that minute, almost imperceptible perspective shift rippled into the new waters of my future.

Some things aren't meant to be. But they were perfectly enough just as they were.