I am Drawn to Couples

Here I am on my NRomantic NRoman holiday secretly hoping it will turn into the two days of a blissful romance with some amazing Italian man and where do I find myself?  Walking through the brick roads of Rome with an American couple I struck up a conversation with at my hotel.  Now I'm not complaining, they were quite lovely and so kind to take me under their wing for the evening.  But I'm curious how I surround myself with couples in my every day life at home and I come to travel alone in one of the most romantic cities in the world (sounds a bit like an oxy-moron thing, I know) and I am spending my Friday evening with a couple from Canada who live in DC.

I feel comfortable with couples I guess, I feel more at ease striking a conversation up with a couple than I do with a man I don't know.  I'm curious to find out why.  Funny thing was while we were walking along by the Trevi fountain and I declined their offer to take a picture of me, just me, by the fountain, I passed by no less than 5 guys walking alone, clearly traveling and I'm walking with two people who could have been my parents.  Okay, maybe I'm giving myself a little too much credit here and thinking I look much younger than 30, but I digress.  I am still the tourist with the camera bag so big strapped to my shoulders and the patagonia wrapped around my waist because it was just warm enough not to wear it walking with the nicest couple, but clearly I looked like nothing short of a doofus.  I don't know another way to explain it.

I saw couples in love tonight; I saw families exploring new and exciting things together for the first time; I saw friends laughing together throwing coins into the fountain hoping each other was the only one watching...I missed my family and I missed my friends.  I had the great luck to find the nicest couple to take pity on me for an evening and let me interrupt their first time away from the kids in 13...THIRTEEN years.  They listened to me tell stories about the people in my life who's stories I love to tell because I believe they are worth hearing.   I was reminded tonight about compassion.  But let's be honest here, after realizing where I was, in this romantic city...ALONE, I look forward to one day being reminded of Passion.

Thank you to the lovely couple, Brook and Jan who let me tag along and showed me not only Rome, but kindness and also a feeling of being home in a far away country...with a friendly couple.