Gwenn’s Diary | Entry 1: The Mystery Man

Gwenn’s Diary

Entry 1: The Mystery Man

I love themes. Roll with it.

Well- in this here post (and a few other diary entires) I will be revealing the mysterious man in whom I spent a whole weekend with after only knowing him since the moment he stepped off a plane in LA (exaggerating a little but you get the point).

So I haven’t written in awhile- I apologize for that. A lot has been going on the last few weeks, and I have been trying to practice the idea of holding things dear and keeping memories sacred.

Because not everything needs to be told. Not every detail of my life needs to be shared.

Which is a super hard thing for me because I love pouring out the details of my life to people who are willing to listen. Because details are fun. And failures are lessons learned. And stories are meant to be told.

So I will tell you this story. The story of a girl, throwing a carrot 2,000 miles away, from Southern California to Atlanta, Georgia, to a guy who barely even knew she existed.

He looks like Ben Rector, so let’s call him Ben for short (just to keep his real name special for the end).

Ben is a blogger, and around March sometime one of his posts when viral.

So I read said post. And another. And another. And I glanced at a few more. I was super curious about him because he was a guy blogging about Jesus with the same sarcastic tone as myself.

A rare find.

So naturally I followed him on all social media accounts and stalked until my heart knew his whole life story.

Whoa whoa, I’m joking y’all. But I did follow him on Instagram, put a face to the stories and went on my merry way.

Okay I’m a liar, I went on my way, but had also gained a huge huge crush on him at the same time.

∴ One time I commented on one of his posts, hoping he’d notice me. Nothin. He replied, but not with, “Girl, you seem cool let’s meet” kinda reply. Just a quick “thank you” and away he went. ∴

A little butt hurt about it but I moved forward in life, still crushing just the same.

A few months of life and laughter followed before I moved off to California to start the thing the world calls “adult life.” Still following Ben’s Instagram and blog at this time. He wasn’t writing much, wasn’t a huge Instagrammer like me (but I’m a little overboard so that’s okay), but every once and awhile he sparked my curiosity.

And then, about a month or so back, he started a new blog called Amateur Hour. Which sparked my curiosity again because I love when 20 somethings admit that they don’t know what they are doing and share their failures and life with the world.

So I read his first blog of what Amateur Hour was all about and almost died of how great the post was, but then realized he had partnered with another girl for this project….

At first I couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing since he knew I was crushing’ hard on him. Seriously, come on dude. How could he? After all we’d been through. I had even mentioned him as one of my three crushes on my blog just weeks before (!!!).

Ridiculous.

After I had gained my composure, I had a crazy idea.

I had just written a post about girls stepping out and taking a chance in the relationship world- throwing a carrot some say, not always waiting for the guy to make the move.

Well. This was the exact scenario I now had with Benny.

He didn’t know I was crushing on him.

He, from all of my Instagram and blog stalking, seemed to still be on the market (minus the minor bump in the road of his blogging partner friend).

And he had his contact information at the end of every one of his blogs.

So here I was, a girl, with the handy dandy internet as my way of communication with a guy thousands of miles away, and a best friend encouraging me through phone and texts to just send the dang email already.

So I did. I wrote him an email. Said I had a crush on him, said I wanted to meet him, done.

No response.

For 2 whole days.

But then, while sitting in school on a lovely Thursday afternoon, I get a notification that Ben Rector (not really) himself emailed me back.

And he told me to call him the next day.

So I did.

Then we FaceTimed. Then FaceTimed again.

We texted too but he’s a horrible texter so that doesn’t really count.

And by the second week of knowing me, he bought a plane ticket out to visit me for 4 straight days.

Um. What Jesus? What are you doing? A guy pursing me? A guy flying 2,000 miles just to meet me face to face?

No way.

But he did. And he was so fun. 

He asked me on a date every night.

Told the worst yet the best dad jokes I had ever heard.

And he laughed at anything that made him remotely happy. And I mean everything.

Like whole rollercoaster rides full of laughter.

Before we knew it, our 4 days were done and I was dropping him off at LAX for a red eye flight to Atlanta.

So, what next then? In 5 short hours he was thousands of miles away again.

Good question- I’m kinda wondering the same thing.

See ya soon,

Stephanie Lynn