Today I’m linking up with Chronically Distracted and their Happiness Project. This month’s theme: Love & Marriage. This week’s prompt was the first date with the love of your life.

 

I met my husband through a personal ad online.

There… I said it. It happened and it was a very long time ago.

I know, it barely raises an eyebrow these days. Now, so many people I meet have met their spouses online that it doesn’t even seem special… or different… or weird. It just is. Nevertheless… this is our story.

December 1995 was a really crappy time for me. I was turning 30 and was just stood up by a really good friend (well, I thought he was a really good friend). He was supposed to fly home with me to Connecticut and spend my birthday with me. I was planning on meeting him at the airport (he was flying down to LA from San Francisco) and surprise… he never showed. I was worried, of course. Maybe something happened to him… maybe he missed his flight and could catch another. Of course, the fact that his name wasn’t even on the passenger list of the San Francisco flight kind of sealed the deal. He wasn’t coming. He had no intention of coming.

I spent my 30th birthday alone. Well, I spent it with my mother. No offense Mom, but it wasn’t exactly the 30th birthday I had planned on

I flew back to Los Angeles a week later and decided to place an online personal ad. I don’t know what I was thinking but meeting guys the regular way just wasn’t working for me. This was January. I had a few responses and met one loser after another. Pretty soon, I gave up writing anyone back and I completely lost track of that personal ad. After a few months it was supposed to disappear from the website. So imagine my surprise in April 1996 when I received an email from some guy wanting to meet me.

Ummm… no, I was over that. I was surprised he found my ad and I was SO not interested in meeting anyone. I was done. I was 30 and done!

I kept getting emails from this guy. Despite the fact that I had no interest, apparently HE did. I was not amused.

Regardless, we emailed back and forth for many weeks. He wanted to meet me. I said no.

At some point, he said he wanted to at least talk to me on the phone. This was way back before there were things like cell phones and texting. You know, back when all email went through AOL. I guess I got tired of him asking, so I gave him my phone number. He called that very night.

He called around 11pm and wanted to know if I wanted to meet him for coffee. At 11pm? Coffee? With a stranger? How fast can you say NO?

He still didn’t take no for an answer. He called me every single night after that. It was both endearing… and a little creepy. What was with this guy?

We talked for weeks on the phone.

In June 1996, I flew to Chicago for my brother’s college graduation. I told him that when I got back, we could meet. Little did I know what I was putting in motion.

We DID meet in June of 1996.

We met for dessert. Not dinner, not drinks… just dessert. Quick. Painless. We met at The Cheesecake Factory in Brentwood. Up until now, we had never seen each other… not even a photo. There was no Instagram or iPhoto and people weren’t uploading personal photos. So I sat there on a bench outside The Cheesecake Factory waiting to meet someone I had been talking to forever but had no idea what to expect.

It was awkward. I sat there looking at every guy - either praying it would be him - or praying it wouldn’t be him. Finally, a guy walks up to me who I hadn’t even considered… tall, balding, mustache and goatee, dressed in black from head to toe. SO NOT MY TYPE! He asked if I was Carolyn. I wanted to run and hide.

We got a table outside and ordered coffee and cheesecake. It was one of the worst dates I had been on. We had nothing to talk about. We had emailed and talked on the phone for so long that there was nothing left to say. Top that off with the fact that he wasn’t t all what I pictured and I just wanted to get the hell out of there and go home.

We finished dessert and he asked if I wanted to take a little walk. No, I just want to go home and pretend this never happened.

We took a walk. I think I felt bad because I really just wanted to go home. I thought I at least owed it to him to spend a few more minutes on this painful date.

The walk was actually not too bad. It was much easier talking when we weren’t sitting face to face. We walked up and down the block and then back to the parking lot where we were both parked. Phew, I can go home now.

As I took my parking ticket out of my pocket to give to the Valet, he took it out of my hand and went to pay for it.

I stood there dumfounded. The date sucked and yet, here was this guy willing to pay for my parking ticket. Who does that?

I was still reeling from the fact that this total stranger was kind enough to pay for my parking even after the date was a train wreck and as I got into my car, he said, “I’ll call you.” Isn’t that what they ALL say?

And as I drove away, all I kept thinking was that this really nice guy PAID for my parking. Wow.

He called the next day.

He proposed one year after we met. (Well, not exactly one year, but that’s a story for another post.)

We were married on November 30, 1997.

 

If you have written about your first date, leave me a link in the comments… I’d love to read all about it.