How we met, part 1
I know some of you know this story, but many don't, and it's a sweet story, so when I don't have other things to blog about I'll tell the tale.
In September 2002, I had finally ended a too-long relationship, and to clear my head, spent a week driving cross-country with Suzi from Spokane to the East Coast to help move her to Philly for grad school. When I got back to town, I signed up with Match.com to see who was out there.
It made sense to me, since I live in a very populated area, that my chances of meeting Mr. Right were pretty slim at the grocery store or bookstore, I didn't want to do the bar scene, and this way I'd know something about the person beforehand.
I signed up for a free account on Friday evening as "CurlyGal", which let me put up a profile and photo, and respond to any emails I received, but I couldn't initiate conversation. That was just fine with me. The picture I posted wasn't all that great since I took it myself, but it was good enough. I wasn't looking to meet someone who was only interested in my looks.
I got some pretty strange emails, but some nice ones, too, including one in my inbox that Monday morning. I looked up his profile and my first thought was, what a cute guy with a great smile! His handle was "NdAHikingPartner". We emailed back and forth for most of the day, then logged onto instant messenger and continued to chat thru Tuesday.
We ended up talking about the movie Signs, which had just come out. It seemed everyone but me had seen it, so Tom suggested we go see it. "Today, tomorrow, next week, next month..." "Well, how about tomorrow? It's the first anniversary of September 11, and I really don't want to be home getting depressed in front of the news..."
So our first date was on September 11, 2002. A friend commented that it would sure make a strange anniversary. But how likely was that?
We met at Pedro's, a Mexican place halfway between our 2 offices. I was surprised how tall he was, 6ft, and as cute in person as in his photo. (He thinks I look better than my photo! Whattaguy!) He gave me a big hug when I came in the restaurant, which I would generally not be so enthusiastic about, but for some reason it just seemed to fit since we'd been talking so much already. We had a very nice friendly dinner, with lots of laughter and easy conversation.
We then went to see Signs at the nearby movie theater. Smart guy - it's a scary jumpy movie and I'm a jumpy kind of person, so I almost ended up in his lap a couple times. We were just about the only people in the theater, so we could talk and have fun and not annoy anyone.
After the movie, we went for coffee at the Starbucks next door. What I didn't know at the time is that this was Tom's first week back at work after an emergency appendectomy, and he was exhausted - but something told him to invite me for coffee after, even though it was at least 10pm and he had to be at work at 7.
All in all, it was a lovely first date, and definitely different from any of the other dates I'd go on in the next few weeks on through Match.com, which were mostly lunch or coffee dates. This was a full-on dinner-movie date, and something just clicked.
In September 2002, I had finally ended a too-long relationship, and to clear my head, spent a week driving cross-country with Suzi from Spokane to the East Coast to help move her to Philly for grad school. When I got back to town, I signed up with Match.com to see who was out there.
It made sense to me, since I live in a very populated area, that my chances of meeting Mr. Right were pretty slim at the grocery store or bookstore, I didn't want to do the bar scene, and this way I'd know something about the person beforehand.
I signed up for a free account on Friday evening as "CurlyGal", which let me put up a profile and photo, and respond to any emails I received, but I couldn't initiate conversation. That was just fine with me. The picture I posted wasn't all that great since I took it myself, but it was good enough. I wasn't looking to meet someone who was only interested in my looks.
I got some pretty strange emails, but some nice ones, too, including one in my inbox that Monday morning. I looked up his profile and my first thought was, what a cute guy with a great smile! His handle was "NdAHikingPartner". We emailed back and forth for most of the day, then logged onto instant messenger and continued to chat thru Tuesday.We ended up talking about the movie Signs, which had just come out. It seemed everyone but me had seen it, so Tom suggested we go see it. "Today, tomorrow, next week, next month..." "Well, how about tomorrow? It's the first anniversary of September 11, and I really don't want to be home getting depressed in front of the news..."
So our first date was on September 11, 2002. A friend commented that it would sure make a strange anniversary. But how likely was that?
We met at Pedro's, a Mexican place halfway between our 2 offices. I was surprised how tall he was, 6ft, and as cute in person as in his photo. (He thinks I look better than my photo! Whattaguy!) He gave me a big hug when I came in the restaurant, which I would generally not be so enthusiastic about, but for some reason it just seemed to fit since we'd been talking so much already. We had a very nice friendly dinner, with lots of laughter and easy conversation.
We then went to see Signs at the nearby movie theater. Smart guy - it's a scary jumpy movie and I'm a jumpy kind of person, so I almost ended up in his lap a couple times. We were just about the only people in the theater, so we could talk and have fun and not annoy anyone.After the movie, we went for coffee at the Starbucks next door. What I didn't know at the time is that this was Tom's first week back at work after an emergency appendectomy, and he was exhausted - but something told him to invite me for coffee after, even though it was at least 10pm and he had to be at work at 7.
All in all, it was a lovely first date, and definitely different from any of the other dates I'd go on in the next few weeks on through Match.com, which were mostly lunch or coffee dates. This was a full-on dinner-movie date, and something just clicked.
