He Cleared His Calendar for Every Match. Then He Kept His Thursday.
Anders dropped his own plans the second a match named a day. The night he told Lucía that Thursday was taken and offered Saturday instead, she leaned in.
Okay I'm calling it, we should actually meet. Thursday? There's a taco place in Benson I keep walking past.
Thursday's taken, it's my curling league night and we're one win off the playoffs. Saturday morning though? Tacos become breakfast tacos.
Hold on. Curling. In Omaha. I have about nine questions.
I'll answer all nine on Saturday. Fair warning, I will explain sweeping and I will use my hands.
Saturday, 10. And honestly it's nice that you have a thing you won't skip.
“Thursday's taken, it's my curling league night and we're one win off the playoffs. Saturday morning though? Tacos become breakfast tacos.”
- first dateBreakfast tacos in Benson
She asked all nine questions. He drew the curling sheet on a napkin, and she kept the napkin.
- month twoShe came to league night
Lucía sat behind the glass with a hot chocolate and yelled 'sweep' at the wrong moments. His team loved her.
- month sixHer Sundays stayed hers
She has a standing call with her sister in Tucson. He never asked her to move it, and she never had to explain.
- nowTwo calendars, one fridge
Thursday is still curling. Sunday is still her sister. Everything else they plan together.
“I thought being available was the same as being interested. It isn't. The first time I told someone my Thursday was taken and gave her a real day instead, she liked me more, not less.”
Anders was the easiest man in Omaha to schedule. A match would name a day and he would say yes before he checked what he already had on. He had skipped a friend's birthday for a first date. He had skipped his own league night four times in one winter, and none of those four dates led to a second one.
He thought of it as showing interest. What it showed was a man with nothing he would protect. The chats went fine, the dates happened, and then they faded, because there was no shape to push against. He was always free, so being with him never felt like being chosen.
The Thursday he almost gave away
Lucía was 30, a pediatric dental hygienist who wrote the way she talked, fast and a little bossy. After five days of good conversation she named a day herself: Thursday, a taco place in Benson.
Thursday was curling. His team was one win off the playoffs, and the other three had already told him, kindly, that they needed him to actually show up this time. His thumbs still typed sure, Thursday works.
He did not send it. He had started running stalled moments through hintder, mostly for openers, and this time he gave it the screenshot and asked for a way to say no that did not sound like a no. It drafted a few options. He picked the plainest one, changed the sport to the real one, and sent it himself.
"Thursday's taken, it's my curling league night and we're one win off the playoffs. Saturday morning though? Tacos become breakfast tacos."
She did not go cold. She wrote back that she had about nine questions about curling in Omaha, and then she said the thing he still remembers: it was nice that he had something he would not skip.
What the no was really saying
Saturday went long. He drew the curling sheet on a napkin and she kept it. Two months later she was behind the glass at the rink, yelling "sweep" at the wrong moments, and his teammates asked when she was coming back.
It worked in both directions. Lucía has a standing Sunday call with her sister, and Anders never asked her to move it. Neither of them had to shrink to make room for the other.
The lesson Anders keeps coming back to is simple. A yes only means something from a person who can also say no. Keep the thing that is yours, and offer a real day in its place.
Your turn to write the next one.
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