It feels like the right time. I’ve held back from writing this one purely because it consumes so much of my heart to tell it right and it is important to me that I do it justice. The “Jasmine” story is the story that started the requests to share my stories online. Triggered by a question, a scent, a photograph or a dream, it is the story that gets the most reaction from those I tell.
Before I begin, I want to tell you that Jasmine is in quotation marks because that is not her real name. I asked her if she would like me to change her name when I eventually wrote about our story. She said yes, however she gave me a name that I thought sounded like a stripper and thus, in my opinion, diluted the vision of the story. I chose Jasmine because of a picture I sent to my friend minutes after meeting her.
Two travellers, both alike in dignity, in fair Roma, where we lay our scene. 
It’s September 2014 and I am on the back end of my trip around Europe. We were so close to the end that our group of 3 that travelled together was losing its first member on the very day this story begins. From Split to Ancona we had taken a ferry into Italy and said our goodbyes at the train station. I was off to Rome alone. Excited by the food and the history I was buoyed with a sense of adventure to tackle this city. My hostel was very social. Perfect for a solo traveller who hadn’t experienced this kind of independence in a foreign country before. Free pizza and wine drew the hostel guests together for dinner giving everyone a perfect chance to meet. I sat at a table with a guy from my dorm unaware of what was about to happen. From behind us a girl entered the dining area, she briefly looked around and continued through to her room to get changed. She wore activewear, a tight ponytail hanging at shoulder length, a red face from the exercise and heat and the most beautiful blues eyes I’d seen. This, all caught in a snapshot as she crossed the room, was my first glimpse of “Jasmine”. To my delight she appeared shortly after with pizza and wine on her mind but the tables were all full. All but mine. I welcomed her to our table. She accepted and enveloped us into the aura she created with the cutest smile and a friendly “hello” in her New York accent. Dinner flew by and soon we were approached by people from the other tables with an invitation for a night out in Rome. My roommate accepted but I was hesitant. I’d been travelling on a boat for the whole of the previous night and the idea of starting a night at 9pm when I was so exhausted didn’t have me jumping out of my skin. They gave up on me and turned their attention to Jasmine. Her response was swift and surprising. “I’ll go if you go” she said to me with a smile. Suddenly, I was interested in going. I couldn’t explain why the beautiful, sweet American girl cared whether I went or not but who was I to question this stroke of luck. We spoke briefly and I told her to “meet me at the top of the stair at 9pm. If 9:01 hits leave without me because I’ve fallen asleep”. So I went to my room and freshened up all the while thinking that I had completely misread this girl and she couldn’t possibly be flirting with me. 8:55pm came by and I was laying on my bed struggling to keep my eyes open when eventually I decided I would kick myself forever if I didn’t go and get to know this girl. 9pm rolled around and there we both were at the top of the stairs together. I’m no Jack and she is no Rose but there was a hint of that in the air.
Our first stop was an ice bar, it would also be our last. Draped in warm capes as we drank from ice goblets myself and Jasmine worked the room separately getting to know our fellow companions from the hostel. At this stage I still wasn’t sure if she was just being friendly or if she was even remotely attracted to me. She was hard to read, I didn’t want to come on strong. It wasn’t until we left the bar that I allowed myself to believe in our connection. We were deliberately planting ourselves next to each other on the walk home, our pace slowed, and our group was suddenly a long way in front. My right hand met her left like a magnet and before we knew it, we were stepping in sync through the streets of Rome, alone. A charge of electricity shot through my body as our lips met for the first time down a dimly lit street. Soft and slow but full of purpose. The softness of her lips matched the kindness of her eyes. Hours passed like minutes as we “got lost” in the streets and alleys of this massive European city laughing, flirting and kissing. Before we knew it, it was 4am. I had planned to go to the Colosseum the next day and Jasmine had an early bus to Florence. Against our desires we agreed the night had to come to an end. We both admitted we knew exactly where we were the whole time. We’d been pretending to be lost to prolong the night. It was a lengthy almost impossible goodbye. Somewhere amongst the goodbyes, hugs and kisses was an invite to Florence from Jasmine. Even an invite to her holiday house in Seville afterwards if I went with her. I had been in Rome for 10 hours, id barely seen daylight here, how could I leave? How could I change my plans for Oktoberfest in 4 days time for a girl I’d just met? What if she wasn’t serious? What if once we got to know each other we didn’t get along? It was something I really wanted to do but my brain defeated my heart and I stayed in Rome. We said our final goodbye before the door shut behind her and she was gone from my life. It was stupid not to get the details of a girl who had made such an impression on me, but I feared that she would drift into the back of my memory and become someone that I didn’t know and deleted from my contacts. I didn’t want her to be that person. The euphoria I felt when returning to my dorm was intense. At the time I would have easily said that this was the best night of my life. So simple yet so powerful. I messaged my friend to discuss the most beautiful girl id ever met, he shared the excitement. I tried to describe her to him, but words fell short. Eventually I remembered a scene from Aladdin that summed her up perfectly, “Beautiful. She’s got these eyes that just-, and this hair- wow, and her smile! Ahhhh!”. It was a giddy few days, but I began to kick myself for not getting her details and not going with her to Florence.
Ice Bar in Rome, Italy
Weeks went by and I returned home, months went by and I still had Jasmine on my mind. I had to find her. I feared I’d look crazy, but I thought she could simply ignore me if she felt that way and that would be it. It was around 6 months later when I began the search again after my first failures. That was when I finally stumbled across her Facebook page. Let me tell you, there are a lot of Jasmines in New York with similar jobs and colleges. I added her and she didn’t accept until a few months later. She messaged first saying she had been looking for me for a very long time, immediately quelling my fear of stalking. We discussed that night and out trips and eventually slipped into standard conversation, finally running out of things to talk about. It wasn’t until I decided to go around South East Asia that I heard from her again. Fate had struck. We were both going to be in Cambodia at the same time. We planned a meet up there for a day or two. I was thrilled at the idea, but she surprised me again when she invited me to go to India with her for 21 days. It was somewhat like déjà vu, only this time I hadn’t planned my trip after Cambodia, and I was never going to let this opportunity slip twice. We booked our flights at the same time via skype to ensure we were on the same flight to India. Then, we waited.
I wasnervous about the decision I had made about India. This wasn’t helped when we were both in Phnom Penh in Cambodia at the same time for 3 days and she didn’t want to meet up until the day we flew out. All I could do was assume that she had things planned and I didn’t fit in those, so I went about my days with people I had met in Cambodia. I sat in a café the morning of departure, very tense, very nervous. But as soon as she walked in it was all about that smile and those eyes again. A tight embrace that could restart any crush turbocharged the engine in my chest. The 3 days of avoidance was ignored, after all we would spend the next 21 days together. We planned an adventurous journey to Delhi with a 24-hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur to see as much as we could and get to know each other. If there was any doubt in my mind that this wasn’t the right thing to do it was soothed by the time we landed in India. The hug in the café, holding her hand at take off and her not letting go until landing because of her apparent fear of flying, taking photos together at the Petronas Towers, holding hands across the side table of our twin beds and simply exploring Kuala Lumpur together made me positive that this is where I was meant to be.
India was unlike anything I had experienced. Although it is so familiar to me now, it was a huge culture shock at the time. It tested both me and Jasmine, but it brought us together very, very quickly. A missed train from Delhi to Agra was our first test. We rented a crappy room for 7 hours while we waited for the next train. Simply being together turned our crappy, dank room into our little palace. Eventually we left on a train that would soon kick us off for being on the wrong train and suddenly we are in the middle of nowhere at 1am trying to get to Agra. We had no choice but to hire a private driver to take us to Agra and Jaipur. If ever there was a monument to solidify my feelings for this girl, it is the Taj Mahal. We spent hours walking around and learning about its love story and construction. How fitting, for our hearts had begun to move a lot faster than either of us intended.
There were times we would sit in the back seat of the car and just look at each other. We didn’t need words, it was too early for words, but it was in the eyes. Regardless, we made a day 10 rule. For fear of the honeymoon period or just the general thrill of travel romance we agreed not to say anything too strong until at least day 10, but once day 10 had come around it was very real and we both tried to keep our feelings inside even though they showed on the outside. India was full of its challenges, but we faced them together; Frustrations from general culture or language barriers, I fell ill for 3 days leaving us stationary with Jasmine looking after me. The main challenge for me was that eventually we would have to say goodbye. This got really hard after our romantic houseboat on the backwaters of Alleppey when we really opened up to each other about our lives and history back home. The difficulty reached its peak in Goa when Jasmine turned to me on the beach under the stars to tell me she loved me. This came as a relief, as I had been trying so hard for well over a week not to say it to her myself. This only made addressing the elephant in the room even more complicated. What now?
On a rooftop in Goa, Jasmine told me she refused to do long distance. I had never tried it and wasn’t very keen on the idea myself. So, we discussed a plan to test if what we had was real or a travel romance. We would go back to our lives after our final month of travelling separately, then after two months living normal lives if we still felt the same way I would fly to New York to see what it would be like. I said I would only do it if she intended to come and see Australia at some point afterwards if it worked out. I wasn’t worried about it not working out, at least we would know. This sounds like a lot of pressure, but I saw it as a win-win situation. If it worked, I got a life with this girl. If it failed, I got to go and explore the United States for a few weeks afterwards, I hadn’t been there yet, so I was keen to do that anyway. Two months went by and things were going well so I started looking at flights. There was excitement coming from both ends but then just as I messaged to confirm I was about to book, Jasmine said I shouldn’t come. She said she hadn’t sorted her life out properly yet and the pressure was far too much. It hurt, but ultimately that was her decision. I tried to put it all behind me as she went on to start a relationship with someone from home. Who could blame her? That would be a lot easier for her.
Time went by and I thought this was the end of the story with myself and Jasmine, the one that got away. But as history repeated itself, I was travelling again in 2017, this time in Central America. Jasmine caught wind of my trip and invited me up to New York, however, she still had a boyfriend and I didn’t think it was fair on myself or her boyfriend if I was to visit. I knew it could never be just friends between the two of us. Weeks went by and I kept getting invites from her to which I responded the same way each time until she finally replied that they weren’t together anymore. Now I had a bigger internal battle, of course I wanted to go and see her, but was I just the rebound? Was I just interesting because I’m different? I declined a few times stating my fears but eventually it was inevitable. I can’t say no to this girl it seems. So, in August 2017 I made my way to Canada to visit friends then to New York to visit Jasmine with no expectation. We are all creatures of habit it seems because we went straight back to where we left off, this time with me living in her apartment for a week. Testing what I wanted to test so badly a year earlier. We lived together, we shopped together, we cooked together. It was blissful. I met her family. I met her friends. I saw her town and saw her work. It didn’t take more than 3 days before she told me she loved me again, but this time I was much more guarded with her. I couldn’t tell her I love her again and leave her in 4 days for her to go on and be with someone else again. I needed to look after my heart. I gave her all my heart in India, when I was throwing caution to the wind and taking a chance, only for it to not be enough. I wanted to stay longer in America, I wanted to live with her, however, I refuse to be unable to help support myself and partner financially. As hard as I tried to find a way to get a work visa in America or a loophole that allowed me to make money and live a legal life with Jasmine, the United States have made it seemingly impossible for a domestic tradesman from Australia to work there. I still remember the morning I left her for the last time. She asked me to stay. I wanted to stay. But I felt I needed to be strong. I would be a liability to her after a few weeks when I had no income and little money left. I didn’t want her to grow to resent me. That final hug on the porch as her friend picked me up to drive me to the city is a pain I won’t forget. I knew she didn’t want to come to Australia. I knew she wouldn’t make travel plans to meet me again somewhere or try and make us work somewhere else. I felt like I was always the one chasing her and doing what suited her. This would almost certainly be the last time we saw each other. The ball was completely in her court. Unfortunately, that ball never came back. There was a brief fortnight where she messaged me daily saying she loved me and wanted me to come back, but even sooner than the time before, that stopped, and I never heard from her.
Two years have passed since I stepped off her porch. A lot has changed. Shortly after the messages stopped, she moved onto her current boyfriend. It was at this point that I remembered her telling me a few details in India that proved that I was just something different to her. I was not her normal “type” as I was the first white guy she had dated and the only guy she had dated that was slightly younger than her. Her previous boyfriend was in his 50s and her current boyfriend is roughly in his 60s. The understanding that I was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit her picture was a very hard pill to swallow, however we all move on and so long as she is happy it is the right decision for her to make. We don’t talk anymore unfortunately. She occasionally likes an Instagram post of mine every now and then however I have unfollowed her on all social media. As I said, I can’t be just friends with Jasmine. I myself have moved on. Spot fires have flared in my heart occasionally from many different countries: Australia, America, Canada, Brazil. Nothing has been successful, and my career choice makes it almost impossible to find someone patient enough to understand my unavailability but for now I’m in love with my job. I wake up smiling every morning due to the excitement of showing people the world. Until I can add the string of love to my bow of life, I am happy doing what I’m doing. The time will come one day, but for now, that is the story of the last girl I gave all four quarters of my heart to, after four days and four dates in four different countries.
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