Have you ever had someone impact your life—bad or good—who would never know of that impact?

my mutual guy friend? sorry this will be long. not super close but he felt like home oddly enough.  i’ve grown up with terrible male figures in my life. have also met emotionally unavailable men/violent creeps that i nearly dated.  he kind of changed the way i see men/dating. we met two years ago solo traveling. we were staying in the same hostel but i didn’t meet him until my last night staying there. he mentioned he had seen me numerous times in the lobby and noticed my outfits. i was mortified bc i had NEVER seen him until that last night. thing is, i wasn’t suppose to even stay there or be in that city. i decided a few days before my scheduled flight home to change my flight by a week. turns out, we were both from North America and we were flying back to our countries on the SAME day from the SAME airport at nearly the SAME time!  we met at the airport and i was running to find him at his gate bc he messaged me saying his flight and mine were leaving earlier.  i’ve never felt this comfortable and safe with a guy almost right away. we talked amongst his other friends that last night in the hostel until 4am. then we met up at the airport a few days later. we saw the country we met in with more rose colored glasses.  we met the next summer for a quick dinner because basically our schedules wouldn’t align except for an hour on a friday night. i froze upon seeing him a year later because i quietly thought to myself he had pretty eyes. he wouldn’t stop staring at me either i felt self conscious and thought my sweat stains were that obvious. i was of course running late and he messaged saying he felt bad making me meet him so far away and it felt like we were always missing each other somehow haha. we talked and basically vented to each other about our lives. i felt bad for sounding stressed and negative. i was going through a rough patch at the time. we talked about our crappy dating lives haha. he told me a story about getting a creepy dude fired at his last job and i remember just slowly falling asleep as he told me this story and i felt drowsy. i had felt so safe around him that my body literally was getting sleepy. normally with guys i get anxious and stomach knots, but with him, none of that. the restaurant was super loud but with him i felt the noise drown out. super strange. i also found out we’re both the eldest of 2 kids. we both have younger sisters who are 2 years apart from us which i thought was funny.  we ended the quick dinner with me sort of coldly waving him bye at the train station and he was super caught off guard by that and without warning i smiled and extended my arms towards him. he gave me the biggest smile and hugged me. i was so caught off guard i froze and hugged him awkwardly. it’s like i wanted to hug him but i was scared i was stepping a boundary. we accidentally held hands and i raised his hand and quickly high fived him lmaoo. i told him to keep me updated on life and he said “close friends only” referring i would only see his updates on instagram. i understood and said “oh okay gotcha!” i realized later that night i had caught feelings for him and honestly it scared me. i don’t want to see him the next time im traveling because ive never felt this way. the first time we met i didn’t know his age until the very end of the night-3 younger than me. i immediately was horrified because my parents have that age gap and i had ingrained it in my brain to never ever fall for a guy 3 years younger than me bc i saw how much my dad mistreated and abused my mom due to how narcissistic and toxic he was. i did the math though and we met around the same ages my parents started dating. whatever feelings i have for this guy i refuse to admit to him because im wayy too embarrassed and i keep asking myself “do i like him? or do i just get attached quickly?” i did have to admit to myself the first time we met i thought he had pretty eyes but it was a quiet realization. normally with men im attracted to there’s a strong physical part i immediately notice and there’s a sexual energy from the start but with him, it was different. he didn’t feel like a hurricane or my hormones running crazy lol. he simply felt like home.  we haven’t talked since last summer but during that dinner i don’t know why i had a weird feeling we were going to be in each others lives somehow coming back and forth.  i’ve accepted whatever happens im okay with. but he made me change my mind about younger guys. he’s incredibly intelligent and respectful and very emotionally mature. at the end of dinner when i apologized for venting he reassured me and said “no don’t worry. if that’s how you feel then it’s valid.” it was super simple but i had never heard that before. i grew up in such a violent/dysfunctional household before. so yeah thanks to him im open to dating a guy who’s a few years younger bc emotional maturity is something important to me now lol.