I was at his house for maybe the third time, and we’d gotten on the topic of discussing literature. We were naming off authors and books we liked, and even the genres we were into. I started talking about this story I’d read, and the book it was from. . .it was an anthology. . .I was pretty sure it was out of print and very hard to find. . .the word “mirrorshades” was in the title. . .
…and he pulled it out from his pile of books.
It’s such a minor thing, and it certainly isn’t why I love him, and want to be with him for the rest of my life. It was more like the fates, working for whatever Diety you’d like to imagine, knocking me over the head with a 2x4 and saying “this is the guy!”
We’d been dating for a month or so - and went to a fancy restaurant. The waitress brought a mini-loaf of bread with a knife stuck in it. As soon as she stepped away, he grabbed the knife, pulled it out with a flourish and said, “I’m the King of England!”
He and a friend of mine were in a business fraternity & just after we started dating, they took a “field trip” to Iowa. She told me later he spent almost the entire trip grilling her on the things I liked & how he could impress me.
I’m an IT tech at a company. I live in Arlington, TX, but I’m taking care of a center in Norman, OK. I get a problem ticket to fix a computer. While under the desk to fix the wiring (get your minds out of the gutter) this beautiful woman sits down and nearly brains me with her knees.
We strike up a conversation. When she finds out I’m living in a hotel, eating alone, she invites me to dinner with her and her firends (shoulda known sumfin was up).
Three weeks later we decided to get married. One year, to the day, after meeting we got married. Every year I take her to a tropical paradise and marry her again.
This year we’re getting married in St. Lucia. Next year we’re getting married in either New Zealand or Tahiti (haven’t decided yet).
I love her VERY much (Duh!)! I could and would get by if she were to come to an untimely demise today. However, my life wouldn’t be nearly as complete, fun, peaceful, etc…
Mine is a sad story. Not sob-sad, just kind of pathetic-sad.
I somehow got myself into the mother of all long-distance relationships, and to top it off, it’s with a woman I have never even met in person. We started talking in a chat room about a year ago, stepped it up to include emails, letters, budget-breaking phone calls. Although thankfully the voice-chat feature in Yahoo Messenger aleviated much of those expenses.
I know the exact moment I fell in love with her, or at least when I first realised I was in love with her. November 19th 2003, 6.15am. My alarm woke me up and I rolled over to say good morning, and was actually surprised when she wasn’t there. Sat up in bed and looked around wondering for a few seconds where she’d gone off to, before the disappointing realisation dawned on me. She wasn’t there, never had been.
I will never forget that feeling. She was supposed to be sleeping next to me. It felt natural. It felt right. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s the one for me.
But you really shouldn’t have life-altering epiphanies that early in the morning. It’s very unsettling.
Anyway, now we’re making it happen. Unfortunately, it’ll be a whole year before I get a chance to expatriate to Australia. It’s a bit daunting trying to sort through all the different immigration information available, but we’re looking into it. As a matter of fact, I have the mandatory IELTS english test scheduled for next friday, which I’ll hopefully pass. Admittedly, that’s just a small step on the way, but at least it’s a start.
A few people here have a very depressing view of love. Yes, there may be more than one person out there who could be the one for you; but damnit, there are over 6,000,000,000 people on this world, and finding a person that you really click with, that you mesh with, that you want to spend forever with is not all that easy.
Some of these stories have been quite touching, even to this cynical reader.
Judging by your post - Don’t Worry. You’ll ace it.
after our first night together (we didn’t do the dating thing, just hooked up and decided to be together) when he made me breakfast in bed, i knew i was a lucky girl.
i spent the next month travelling all over europe, and i missed him more than my family. despite having only met him 3 times.
that i can’t stop thinking about him.
that it’s easy, none of our relationship has been a struggle to fit in or adapt to each other.
we fit together and we work so well as a team.
that i can imagine him as the father of my children, as my husband, and growing old with him.
that i can forgive him when he drunkenly calls me at 3 in the morning and then won’t pick up the phone when i return the call.
We “met cute.” The future Mrs. T. and I, from New England and New York, respectively, had each ended up in Chicago in the early 80s for graduate work. She had finished hers and was working for a well-known national magazine based in Chicago while also doing freelance dance reviews and occasional feature articles for the Chicago Reader. (Though she never met the Master in person, she did speak to him on the phone while he was working on this column. Does that win me points?) About a year before I finished mine, a friend and his roommate decided to throw themselves a graduation party. Since the party was in Evanston, just north of the city, and I was driving up from the South Side, they asked if I could give this girl, a friend of the roommate, a ride back to her place downtown when the party was over. It was on my way so I agreed readily enough.
When I got to the party they introduced me to the young woman in question. Most of what I remember is that we sat and talked for the rest of party. What she remembers is that they had a cat, her cat allergy kicked in, and she started sneezing more and more uncontrollably as time went on. (Funny how memory works. That really didn’t stick in my mind.) Eventually she couldn’t take it any more and asked if we could leave and could I give her that ride home. So I did.
I’m tempted to say “and the rest is history” and leave it to your imagination, but it didn’t happen that way. That was spring and we didn’t meet again until fall, when she joined a small club, a change-ringing guild, that I was a member of and had told her about. I was dating someone else, but I don’t think it meant much to either of us. When Mrs. T. told the group that she had two tickets to a Martha Graham concert I jumped at the chance.
I don’t think I every had that sudden realization that “this is the one.” It was more like falling off a cliff, an accelerating and exhilarating rush. But by Thanksgiving, when I went home to visit my parents and they asked if it was serious, I knew it was and they could tell, too. It wasn’t Valentine’s day but the day after, which is her birthday, when I proposed and she accepted.
In a little more than a week it will be 18 years since I proposed and about 17 1/2 years that we’ve been very happily married.
First date. Over dinner, we’re talking about movies. Then horror movies. Then vampires. Then vampires that might be interested in other bodily fluids than blood. She mentions The Snot Vampire. The Pus Vampire. I’m thinking, “She’s making no effort to impress me, she’s just being who she is and I can take it or leave it.”
No games, no dissembling, no pretending to be anything but the witty dirty-minded person you are. That’s a keeper. That’s the one you marry. That was 23 years ago, and we’re still sharing the same bed. Smartest choice I ever made.
And she can still make me laugh and gross me out like nobody I’ve ever met before or since. She’s a rare prize; I can no longer imagine a life without her.
We shouldn’t be together at all… our first date was a “group date” to a local bowling alley (gimme a break, I was 19 :)), then to a party where I proceeded to get sloppy drunk and sit on the lap of a guy friend I hadn’t seen in years. The future Mr. Winnie still called me the next day apologizing for being quiet the night before since he’s just gotten off work and could he treat me to dinner. I never intended to stay with him, I’d just come out of my on/off 3-year relationship with my high school sweetheart and wasn’t into another serious thing. But after that dinner we went out again, and again, and again… and then I fell in love with the most passionate, sensitive, funny, intelligent man I’d ever hoped to meet.
What makes him “the one”? Plain and simple is that it’s just easy. Everything about our relationship is so natural and easy. He’s my best friend as well as my husband, and it just “works”.
In that vein, I have a collection of love letters from my wife that I plan to burn at some point just before I die - but that wasn’t what sealed it for me. We went thru a personal crisis together and at the end I honestly expected her to tell me to FOAD. When she told me she was moving in with me instead, I realized I’d rather cut off my arm than be apart from her.
When my wife and I were dating, the running joke amoung our friends was that she taught me to walk without dragging my knuckles, and I’ve been following her around ever since.
I know how that feels, man. I don’t really think I’m gonna find someone I connect with as much as my last ex, but there’s hope. I still talk with him, and, to be honest, if the situation were more available for a polyamorous relationship with him, me and his current SO, I’d go along with it. He agrees with me on that situation, but realizes there’s not a possibility for that, given that (a) I’m not fond of the girl, and (b) she’s definitely not into letting anyone else near “her goods.”*
[sub]*No, I don’t see my ex as property, but when I see her and him together, I see the way she treats him and it’s like she feels she has ownership over him like a pet monkey or something. It’s a little upsetting at times. Thank goddess they live on the other end of the state as me now.[/sub]
::gives soulmurk a hug:: Don’t be so sure that they’re the ONLY one… some of us manage to find more than one that we connect with in a way that completes us.
