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Over the years, I've met a lot of friends on the road. In 2019, I was out of town nearly every weekend, making it impossible to start a relationship in Austin. Any time my friends invited me to a party, I'd look at my schedule and have to apologize. I would inevitably be carving somewhere miles away, sometimes on the other side of the planet. The invitations slowed down and eventually stopped. I would swipe on dating apps, only to ignore my matches because I couldn't fit them in. I was only in Austin to do laundry before heading out of town again.
My social life was at a standstill... locally. But on the road, I was just hitting my stride. On the road, I am more me than I ever am at home. You don't need so much time to connect with someone when you're traveling. Instantaneous lifelong friendships often form when two people encounter each other outside of their comfort zones.
For many of us, sex is a biological need. This is definitely true for me. I need it... like, I really need it. So I developed a travel routine for survival. I didn't always have time to leave introductions to new people up to chance, so I would change my dating app settings to swipe in the town I would be working before I got there, in this case, Oklahoma. By the time I pulled into town, I knew which one I wanted: Luke, the tall ginger. I gave him my ETA, showered, and he came to my hotel just as the pizza arrived. I had an immediately amazing evening. This is how you organize your life! Highly recommended.
I was there to chainsaw carve for a few hardware stores. He was there to lead a team fixing wind turbines. We spent our two overlapping days together and formed a little bond. We kept in touch for over a year until he came to Texas to fix the turbines here after Snowmageddon. We discovered that Waco was equidistant between Austin and the small town he was working in. We met in the middle there at a hotel just to say hello again. Bliss!
Here's a pic from our little reunion. I like it and I want to share it with you. And it makes me want to share more photos from all the people who have touched me the past few years, as I've explored relationship anarchy. I've been enjoying the hell out of this lifestyle. I am evangelical about it. More on that later...
