In August 2011 I'd kind of started seeing a friend.
We'd gone out on a couple of dates a year earlier but I wasn't interested in going further. I said I'd like to be friends and neither of us expected we'd talk much, or at all. But we did. I wish I could remember what those first few conversations were like. I know they were about food. We ended up texting late at night because we were both up: he was a night owl and I had a job that kept me up until nearly 3am some nights. He'd tell me about the carne asada fries he was eating and I probably told him about whatever happened with the students I was driving to and from the clubs.
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| Goofing on one of our zoo day adventures. |
We graduated to getting sushi together, going to the zoo, taking his dog to the dog park, and sometimes just chilling at one of our places. He invited me to his birthday at his local bar (where I knew no one else and some total ass asked for my number). I invited him to a sort of anti-Valentine's party (with the guy I'd started seeing since). We went to Taco Tuesday at Fred's (RIP). Once I saw him there with his friend while I was with guy-I'd-started-seeing. I nearly fell over my chair to go say hi. Once I went with him and the woman he was kind of seeing (she gave me a ride back to my car).
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| Valentine's Day cookie decorating. |
The next summer, things happened. Simultaneously, independently, and in a one thing led to another kind of way. At one point, annoyed with myself for the romantic choices I'd been making, I made a list of qualities I wanted in a partner. It was time to stop accepting mediocre and set some standards.
Weirdly, my friend checked a lot of the boxes. Like, a lot a lot. Only I didn't have the feelings.
A little while later it was like a switch had been flipped. The feelings were there! And then other things happened.
And so on August 7, 2011 I had a 13-day-old who-knows-what with this friend when he invited me hiking with his other friend and the friend's girlfriend. So I went.
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| "Hiking" selfie from that day. |
The trail they'd planned was closed. We went somewhere nearby but it was a ridiculously short path. We started way later than I was used to (it was August in San Diego, who starts a hike after 10am?), we'd had two set backs, and no one wanted to try a third time. Someone suggested In-N-Out for lunch, so we drove back into town.
We took a table outside and chatted while waiting for our food. They were all theater people, I was nooooot. After we got our trays, my friend went back inside for ketchup for all of us, leaving me alone with his two friends. That was when the friend's girlfriend saw her moment.
I'll paraphrase but the tone and meaning is there.
Girlfriend: So you've been into him for a while, huh?
Me: Uh, not really? He was actually into me.
Girlfriend: Oh. Well I set him up with my friend who is a prestigious person in the theater world. I thought they'd be so good together. But then she moved to New York so, you know... [heavily implying that obviously the only reason they didn't date was because of geography]
Me: Oh. He didn't mention.
By that time, my friend had rescued me with his return to the table. But my hackles stayed up. Clearly, this girlfriend didn't approve of me. But who was she? Luckily, it didn't take long to finish our burgers and fries and leave. We went back to his place where we showered, then got into bed all fresh and clean and got a little less fresh and clean.
But her comments had stayed with me. I realized I didn't know if he was also seeing other people. He probably was, at least casually. I mean, we were seeing each other casually. We'd had no conversations about anything, just the implications that now going over to one another's houses meant sex when it didn't used to. It hadn't bothered me because I didn't even think about it. But now I was thinking about it.
I also realized I did like him in that way. I could see my feelings getting deeper. If this was surface level for him, it would be better to know and mentally prepare myself.
So while we still lay in his bed, I asked.
Me: So, are you seeing other people?
Him: No. Are you?
Me, shocked, stammering: No.
Him: Should we make this official, then?
Me: What? Official? What do you mean?
Him: I mean like do you want to be my girlfriend?
Me, still shocked: Yeah.
Him: OK then, it's official.
The main reason I was so surprised was because I hadn't planned on having the talk yet, and absolutely did not expect it to end in a commitment. I thought we'd both state our situations then go on behaving like we had been for a month or two or twelve. Now, I'm updating my Facebook relationship status and getting instant friend requests from people who wanted to snoop (mainly his best friend who did not get the best first impressions of me) and making plans to call my Facebook-less family so they don't hear from some relative (we are not the same race, it was going to be gossip).
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| Our first New Year's Eve together, when I thought this could be it. |
Fifteen years later we are still in a relationship: married for 6.5 years! That girlfriend who wanted him to date some fancy New York theater person? She was the center of a cheating scandal that involved a married guy and an abortion, resulted in a broken engagement and a divorce, trust issues for the innocent bystanders, and a loss of good will among quite a few people.
When I asked him about that fancy New York theater person, he said he was never even interested in her. He'd made it a rule to not date in the theater world. Some of it was good decision making: if things end badly you can screw up an audition, production, or even a career. But most of the time it was simply that a lot of the theater girls were a lot. And she'd been one of those types.
