I'm sitting in the train on a lazy Sunday, travelling back home from a visit to my parents. The train is fairly full, but not overly so. I end up sitting in a four-seat area, two facing two, in order not to bother anybody by sitting next to them. After a few stops a family walks into the cabin, and asks me if they can sit in my spot, so they can sit together. I agree, of course, and go looking for another place to sit, but there are no empty rows. I do notice a cute girl sitting alone, staring out the window towards the back of the cabin. Taking a few breaths to hype myself up, I walk over and sit down next to her, after putting my bag in the overhead storage.
She looks over at me as a sit down and offers a gentle smile. I smile back. I notice she is not wearing any earbuds and doesn't seem to be doing anything at the moment, aside from looking outside, so I decide to take a deep breath, count to 5 and put forth all the confidence that I can muster, and ask her. "What is someone as pretty as you doing here looking out of the window so lonely for?" Of course, I instantly regret my fumbling of the sentence, and how crazy I must have sounded to her, let alone anyone else that may have heard it, and I start blushing. I almost start to get ready to get back up and go sit somewhere else when she responds, a cute little smile on her gentle face and some rosiness on her cheeks. "Oh, wow, thanks, you don't look bad yourself either."
My stomach does a somersault, and I feel all tingly inside. "I was just thinking about how nice it would be if someone cute came along, sat next to me and give me a compliment." She continues. For a second, I can hardly comprehend what I'm actually hearing. But a response like that pushes me to come up with something creative and funny to respond to her. "Well, I guess today is your lucky day then! I offer all kinds of compliments. Would you like to see the menu?"
The joke is lame and terrible, but my heart lights as she laughs at it, the afternoon sun coming through the train window framing her face in a halo of light. I can't help but laugh as well, and we spend the next few moments laughing, until she puts her hand on my shoulder, saying "That joke was really bad, but you know, you made it work anyway." Or at least, she said something like that, as my brain is mostly occupied by the gentle touch of her hand, as it sends tingles down my back, and I resist the urge to shiver.
"Since I'm so bad at jokes, I guess I'm just going to have to stick with compliments then. Your outfit is awesome, you look really good in it." This time it is her turn to blush, as she seems to struggle for a second to find the right words. "Your make-up is looking great too. Are you going somewhere important, or did you put it on for me?" I continue, emboldened by her response so far. "Stop it! No... wait... feel free to continue... if you'd like." She says, positively turning red and giggling. I join her laugh, and she continues. "I'm not going anywhere important... so I guess that only leaves one other option, right?"
"Aww, how sweet of you to think of me." I say to keep up our little improv act. Picking up on where I'm going, she responds "Of course, m'dear, I alllways aim to look my best for you." She even adds some exaggerated blinking, with her hands clasped together to complete the image. That is enough to make me break and with a big grin on my face I tell her. "Wow, you really are the best."
"So, on a more serious note, how long can I expect to enjoy your company on this train ride?" She raises an eyebrow and responds "That's an odd way of asking where I'm going, but sure. I'm going all the way to the end of the line, so if you are too, that should give us a few hours at least, right?" I can't believe how lucky I'm feeling right now. "Oh wow, cool. With your company, this train ride is certainly going to be a lot more fun than it normally is." I reply. She seems just as excited about the thought, and her next words confirm it. "Yeah, totally. I mean, it's not terrible, but it is normally quite boring, and certainly a bit lonely."
We continue talking and flirting for the rest of the ride and talk each other's ears off with questions and compliments. As we are approaching the final stop, I turn to her. This is the big moment, so I focus intently to not mess it up and say something stupid. "I really enjoyed talking to you, you are such a pleasure to hang out with. Would you like to go out with me sometime?" I hold my breath, as all of the different reasons why she could say no flash through my mind. But her response is even better than I could have imagined. "That sounds great. By the way, I happen to not have any plans for dinner yet tonight. If you don't either, would you be up for showing me a restaurant you like?"