I think I just fell in love with a girl I just met at a kebap place. I just came back and gotta talk about it while it's still fresh:

When I walked in, I immediately noticed her and how beautiful her shiny brown hair was. She was wearing it in a braid.

Since she was looking at the menu, I thought she might still be deciding what to order. So I waited in line, standing next to her but a few meters away. She seemed really focused, as if she couldn’t decide what she wanted.

That’s when I noticed that her face was truly gorgeous, like it was perfect and made for smiling. Just imagining her smile made my heart beat faster. She wasn’t smiling, though, because, as I mentioned, she seemed really focused on the menu. I wondered if she hadn’t eaten in a while and was making sure the next thing she was going to eat would be really good.

When I realized I was staring at her, I turned away and looked at the menu myself. I couldn't really focus on it, because I couldn't care less about what I'm going to eat in that moment. I could only think about how beautiful her hair was.

Ahhh, I need to tell her that her hair is really beautiful, like wow!

I've decided in that moment that if I am not going to tell her, I will never forgive myself. Then the guy asked me what I wanted.

I quickly looked at her again and asked if she had already ordered. I’m not sure if she heard me, but the guy replied that yes, she had already ordered. I rolled my eyes internally because, to me, it was quite obvious that it wasn’t really about whether she had ordered or not. I just wanted to talk to her and was willing to use any excuse to do so.

When I looked back at the guy, he was no longer looking at me to take my order. He was preparing food again. I wondered if he was just impatient or if I'm losing track of time when I look at her. I waited a bit to see if he would look at me again, but he didn’t. That was okay with me—I didn’t know what I wanted to eat yet anyway.

To prepare myself to talk to her, I wanted to ask the guy a question. So I looked at the menu and wondered, hmm, what could I ask him? I noticed that two items sounded very similar, so I quickly made up my mind that I would ask him what the difference was between them. This way, I could get rid of my usual initial clumsiness when starting a conversation after not speaking to anyone for hours. It’s like my brain first has to tune itself to think like other people again before other people can understand me.

Since I now had a better reason to actually give my order than just being hungry, I looked at the guy until our eyes met. When that happened, I made sure to speak with a very confident voice, because surely she would hear it too. Surely she would be impressed that I could tell someone what I wanted to eat with such confidence.

The guy tried to explain to me what the difference was, but I didn’t understand it, just like he hadn’t initially understood my question. Fortunately, I realized at the end that he said they had run out of it for the day anyway, so I quickly said it was okay and that I would get the other one. With my order out of the way, I could now pay full attention to my mission: talking to her and telling her how beautiful her hair was.

Since I couldn’t just look at her for no reason, I started to look around. Two men were sitting at a table, eating pizza and watching something on a phone. The guy behind the counter was preparing food. The owner of the place had walked through a door that said “private” earlier and would probably be back soon. She was still just standing there. I noticed a Red Bull can behind her on the counter, where people can also sit on bar stools to eat. I wondered if it was hers, but it looked kind of lost.

I was getting a bit anxious because I realized I had no plan for how to approach her, and I didn’t know how much time I had left. I didn’t want to just walk the three steps to her and tell her that I had been mesmerized by her hair the moment I walked through the door. I could feel my heart starting to beat faster and stronger, and my hands beginning to sweat. I was pressuring myself. I hadn’t felt so strongly about a girl in a while—maybe even never so fast, since I had literally just met her a few minutes ago.

I felt so strongly about her that I actually had lower expectations.

I wasn’t trying to get her number. I wasn’t trying to get into a longer conversation. I was just trying to make her smile with an honest compliment from one person to another. That also meant it didn’t matter anymore to me if she was in a relationship or not. I just wanted to make sure she knew she was stunning, and then walk away so as not to make it weird. Since she wasn't smiling, she also looked to me like she could need a compliment.

However, I still didn’t know how to approach her without making it weird before I had even said a word. I was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. I picked up on the music that was playing—it was a song I knew. Hoping she would think I’m cool, I started to slightly move my head to the rhythm. To make it look natural, I tried to pretend this was something I would do even if she weren’t there.

To my surprise, I think I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she had started doing the same. My heart jumped. I stopped.

Surely that was just a coincidence, right?

I moved around the room to get into a position where I could see her without intentionally looking at her. I now had the whole room in view and was secretly observing her without directly staring. I was completely mesmerized by her. She wasn’t very tall but slender, and with her very casual clothes, no makeup that I could tell, and relaxed body language, she looked incredibly cute. She was wearing a slightly oversized knitted sweater, pants, and sneakers. Every moment I wasn’t looking at her hurt.

Since she wasn’t staring down at a phone, just looking at nothing in particular made her seem like a very calm person. She was simply patiently waiting for her order to be ready.

However, there was something about her gaze that seemed off. It looked a little too much as if she were daydreaming or lost in thought. Even though I had previously thought she was imitating me, she didn’t actually seem to notice me, which was good, because it meant I could continue looking. I was also off to her side now, so she would have to turn her head to really see me—an unfair position, you could say.

However, to my surprise, she did the same. She moved to the other end and sat down on a chair. We were now facing each other, more or less. I couldn’t look at her face anymore…

Since she was now far away, I almost gave up. For me to talk to her, we had to somehow already be in close proximity, so I wouldn’t have to make the walk of desperation.

Shortly after I moved back to my original spot so I could be at least a little closer to her, her order was ready. She stood up and also walked over to me to tell the guy how she wanted her kebap. That's when I heard her voice for the first time. She said in a very soft voice that she wanted it "normal" and the guy was confused.

Guy: What do you mean, normal? With everything?

Her: Yeah.

I felt like the guy wasn’t treating her very well. Sure, saying “normal” wasn’t the best description, but he could have responded in a slightly less annoyed way.

Suddenly, she was so close in front of me that I could have tapped her on the shoulder.

NOW OR NEVER

For some reason, the first thing that came to my mind was to ask about the Red Bull can from earlier:

Me: Hey, is that Red Bull can yours?

Her: No.

I immediately gave myself an imaginary facepalm and thought that was obviously a dumb question. I really do have a talent for asking dumb questions. Fortunately, I was able to explain myself:

Me: Oh, just wanted to make sure.

Her: It was already there when I entered.

This follow-up seemed to have worked wonders—as if she realized I cared about her. Then she did something I will never forget, something no girl had ever done before. She smiled at me and gave me a compliment out of the blue. She had liked my shoes ever since I walked in. I was shocked. My heart was exploding. She smiled at me before I even told her what I planned to tell her. And apparently, she had noticed me from the beginning and was also considering saying something to me???

I didn't wait any longer and said that I also wanted to tell her something, too. I leaned over and whispered into her ear that I thought her hair is really very beautiful.

Her face lit up, and for a few moments, we just grinned at each other, unable to fully comprehend what had just happened. My heart was melting. She was grinning so much that I felt like we had just become friends and could now talk about anything. She really appreciated me saying so, and I really appreciated her saying so. For a moment, I considered saying that I also really like my shoes because it’s true, but fortunately, I didn’t, because I didn’t want to sound arrogant or actually get into a conversation about my shoes, haha.

Instead, she took me by surprise again and asked me how old I am.

wow, she's getting straight to the point

Me: Uhhhhm ... I'm 28.

(For some reason, I always have to think about my age first, and I always wonder if it looks like I’m considering to lie. But no, I’m just retarded.)

Me: What about you? Or wait, let me guess ... wait, what would you have guessed?

Her: 24

Me: Wow, that's nice to hear. I definitely feel like I'm still 24, haha

Now it was my turn. She definitely looked young, but it was hard to tell:

Me: Are you ... 20?

Her: shakes head

Me: ... younger?

Her: nods head

Me: ... 18?

Her: shakes head

Me: ... younger?

Her: nods head

Me: ... 16?

Her: nods head

Me: Was that a nod?

Her: Yeah!

Then we somehow got into a conversation: she always comes here, and she goes to a school not far from here. However, she couldn’t remember the name of her school for some reason. We laughed about that, and I told her that I’m not from here, so I wouldn’t know where the school was even if she told me which one it was.

Then the guy asked about her other kebaps and she turned around again.

I assumed we’d continue talking, but when she paid, she just left. For a moment, I was frozen. When the door closed behind her, I ran after her and tried to get her attention by saying, “Sorry?” She didn’t hear me. She was walking quite fast. I ran after her a little and said it one more time, a little louder. She still didn’t turn around. I stopped and watched her go. All my hopes and dreams of becoming a part of her life in any way were quickly fading before my eyes.

You're 28. Are you really going to run after a girl that's 16?

I went back inside, and the guy looked at me as if he couldn’t care less about what had just happened. I told him how I wanted my kebap and paid.

Then I started running.

I only knew the initial direction she had taken, but a crossing came very quickly. I looked down every street but couldn’t see her. I walked straight and tried to calculate how far she could have gotten. I quickly lost hope because even if I knew how much time had passed since I saw her walking away and ran after her, I still didn’t know which direction she had taken. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to ask for her number first, but for her name.

She was gone. It was okay, though, because I had gotten more than I expected.

Now I will eat my kebap while it's still fresh.