Ryan and Me: Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Beyond the Workplace

It took about three weeks of emailing and talking to each other at work before the initial step was taken to move my friendship with Ryan outside of the work place. This happened on June 18, 2010. Ryan had asked me to read a paper he wrote for one of his classes. I walked down to his office to return it to him and we ended up talking for quite some time. I eventually realized I was late in leaving and therefore wouldn't catch my train in time. Ryan kindly offered me a ride to my car.

The drive was full of conversation. He played me some of his favorite music - most of it metal - which was too obnoxious for me. He did play me one mellow song which was so depressing. I couldn't understand why he chose to focus on such depressing things. I knew we were very different in that regard. We also talked about how difficult it is to date and how we don't like playing the games. He also told me a little more about his upbringing. At one point he looked over at me and said:

"I really do envy you for the faith you have and I wish I had it but I don't think I ever will."

At that moment I may have felt my heart break a little. I sat in silence for only a couple of seconds before I really felt like I needed to say something. Without wanting to push the issue however, I asked, "Can I say something?"

"Of course!" he replied.

I then told him that if faith is something he really wanted, he could have it. But his heart had to be open to it and right then I didn't feel like it was. He said, "No, it's not".

"That's okay" I told him. "You are in the process of figuring yourself out and I think once you do, faith will come. You just have to want it."

More than anything, I really felt he needed to understand that faith is something that had to be desired. If he truly wanted to have faith in something greater than himself, he had to want it and he had to work for it. He didn't say much after that, he just kind of nodded his head. By that point we had arrived at the train station so I thanked him for the ride and said goodbye. That night I wrote my thoughts about this conversation in my journal. This is some of what I said:

Ryan is obviously searching for something in his life. If he wasn't questioning his faith, I don't think he would have even brought it up with me...I love that he can talk to me about it though. I really hope we can have more conversations like that.

I knew that in order to have more conversations like that, we had to spend more time together outside of the work place. I didn't quite know how to go about doing that, however, because he didn't have my phone number and I didn't want to just give it to him. It wasn't until a week later, June 25th, when he mentioned that I should go running with him sometime. At the time I told him I hated running but then in pondering it later on, I realized it would be a perfect opportunity to spend time with him outside of the work place. So I sent him an email and told him that I would love to go running sometime and he should call me. Then I added,

"Oh, but wait...you haven't asked for my phone number yet."

Within minutes he replied, asking for my number. And by that evening he was texting me. The next phase of our friendship had officially begun.