366 Days.

In December 2002, I got dumped hard, painfully, and unexpectedly. Not long thereafter, I picked up the pieces of my heart and ego and put my patched-together self back on the dating market. I'd been through plenty of splits in the past, but none so painful. Whereas in the past I'd always bounced back quickly and resiliently from breakups, this time I was uncharacteristically bitter and wary.

After a few months of what felt like endless bad or (almost worse) uninspiring blind dates, depressing Jewish singles events, and disappointing forays into online dating, I was about ready to hang up my dating hat and just stop looking for a while. I'd met a few guys who were fun to spend time with, but the majority, particularly those over 35, seemed emotionally stunted, hopelessly self-absorbed, flat-out boring, or so dramatically NOT what they'd held themselves out to be via friends, phone, or Jdate that by the end of an hour they'd blown any chance of ever earning my trust.

Some time in the spring, my friend R. asked me whether I was interested in meeting a guy she knew. He wasn't Jewish, she said, but was a climber and skier, extremely smart, "adorable," laid back, and so fun and interesting to talk to that if she wasn't getting hitched two months hence she'd date him herself. "Why not?" I answered, and suggested she give him my digits. I figured we'd have enough in common to survive dinner together, if nothing else.

Alas, the fix-up would not be so easily reconnoitered.

First, it turned out that R. was not closely acquainted with the mystery bachelor, but rather knew him through another friend. That friend, N., concurred that we two might click, but said she and her husband were in the process of fixing up The Bachelor with another woman. Some weeks later, when that liaison had failed to materialize, she renewed the idea of introducing us. Again, I offered up my phone number. But N. resisted this approach, suggesting instead that she and her husband join The Bachelor and me for a restaurant excursion.

Having suffered through more than one fix-up dinner at which the fixer-uppers came along to chaperone and observe, I wanted nothing to do with this approach. But N. was insistent, apparently fearing that The Bachelor wouldn't follow through with a phone call if left to his own devices. It's hard enough for me to hear/lip-read one dining companion in a noisy restaurant, but trying to follow a group conversation is too challenging a situation to throw at me on a first date. When I countered with this fact, N. proposed dinner at their place; because she and her husband are fabulous cooks, I agreed.

Unfortunately, N. was working out of state for most of the summer, and between everyone's complicated schedules it was months before we could find a collectively acceptable date. In the meantime, I weathered dates with the likes of Dr. Snaggletooth, Dr. Horn Dog, The Guy Who Asked Me Out (twice) in Front of His Girlfriend, The Not-Quite Divorced Guy, and Mr. Perfectionist. Needless to say, I was hopeful, but not terribly optimistic, when the appointed day finally rolled around.

Imagine my pleasant surprise, then, upon walking into N.'s kitchen and discovering The Bachelor to be friendly, easy to engage in conversation (we talked gear for ages, then segued to politics, travel, and climbing), obviously smart but sweetly unassuming, funny, interesting, direct, and as-advertised adorable. At the end of a long and lovely evening, when N. and her husband finally threw us out, he gave me a ride home and left me at my door with a climbing date for the following week.

It was July 27, 2003.

The rest is history.

Comments

[UCL]

Awesome story. :)

Happy anniversary.

[mad]

Heh - thanks! But it's nothing compared to the story of our first date . . . stay tuned for that one on Friday! ;-)

[TPB, Esq.]

(Moe Voice) Aw... geez...(/Moe Voice)

[Rana]

Oh, that's so sweet! :) What a cool story.