Twelve Years, Give or Take.

Twelve years ago or so, I winked at a guy on Match.com. Sure, winking's kind of a wimpy way of getting a guy's attention. But for me, I was practically throwing myself at him. I'm subtle that way. My flirting capabilities have barely evolved from running up and punching the boys I liked on the playground.

Despite the fact that I had no photo on my profile (amateur), this incredibly dashing and intelligent lawyer responded to me. He said it was my wit that attracted him. I had written a rather insane profile, in which I listed all my likes in dislikes in the most absurd fashion.

"You're a smart ass," he wrote. "I like that."

He also added that he shared my various likes and dislikes, including a seething distrust of old ladies.

"In fact," he wrote. "I just splayed an old blue hair across the sidewalk this morning on my way into the office."

The man called me a smart ass in his opening remarks and then used the word "splayed." I think we can all agree I was pretty much toast.

We crashed into each other for a year and a half. Our relationship was intense and joyous. I don't think either one of us had experienced that kind of connection. Over-the-top. Hilarious. Adventurous. Easy. And oh-so-very chatty. Sitting with Fred was like sitting with my long-lost best friend. We talked for hours over dinner. For hours late into the night and early morning, our legs tangled together, with me pounding my fist into the mattress from laughing so hard. Ridiculous and passionate and somehow we each felt we'd met our match.

Until we broke up.

*Record scratch*

I know. That's not how this story was supposed to go. What can I tell you other than when we first met, we were both fresh out of relationships that had left us reeling? Our lives were complicated and we were still disentangling ourselves from the wreckage. It's not an unfamiliar story and it's often the story of the rebound relationship.

But this didn't feel like a rebound.

"Sometimes the best love stories don't have happy endings," my sister told me. And it rang true. It continued to ring in my ears for almost a year while we were apart. Until I decided to get him back, of course.

So I chased after that boy and punched him in the arm again.

Wouldn't you know, the sucker came back.

We're coming up on the twelfth anniversary of meeting each other. If you want to get complicated, you can't really say it's our twelfth anniversary because there's that whole ten months where we both dated other people.

*Awkward*

But twelve years ago, I winked at a guy on Match.com and he was funny and lovely and he set my world back to shining again. I felt smart and witty and wonderful and strong. He propped me back up, put a spit shine on me, and set me back out into the world. Not quite a new woman, but back to the woman I was before a bad relationship had stripped me down to nothing.

And isn't that something?



Happy Not-Anniversary, Fred. I love you a lot.

How I Married the Next Door Neighbor

Did I mention that my husband's name is Fred?

Ten years ago I broke up with my ex and moved out. It was a rather hasty event. Imagine me, in a huff, packing up all of my belongings and cramming them into a Jeep Wrangler...including my infant son.

I don't think my friends really believed it was over, over. I'm sure they all thought we would get back together. But this time I was done, done. I'd moved in with a girlfriend (bless her heart) and despite the fact that no one else believed me, I knew it was finished for good this time.

"As god as my witness," I told my girlfriends, a glass of wine raised to the heavens, "I will go out on a date!"

None of them believed me. They rolled their eyes and waited for me to come up with the list of excuses of why I was going to go back to the ex. But I got serious. I went on Match.com and resisted the urge to rewrite my profile a dozen times. I browsed through all of the men available to me in my immediate area. I scrolled through photos of smiling faces like I'd scrolled through sale sweaters on J.Crew.

Finally, I found a cute one.

He was tall, he had dark hair and he was handsome. Plus he had an excellent vocabulary and used compound sentences. I clicked the "Wink" button and waited to see what would happen. Normally I would never initiate contact with a man. I like to be found. But I didn't have a profile picture and figured I'd have to throw myself out there if I was going to prove my girlfriends wrong.

Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome responded to my wink.

"You are a smartass," he wrote. "I myself am one of those."

My eyes widened. I'd written a smartassed profile and he'd not only read it, he called me out on it! In my profile I'd mentioned my likes and dislikes. Included in my list of dislikes: "Old ladies."

"I can't stand old people," he wrote. "As a matter of fact, I splayed an old blue hair out on the sidewalk just this afternoon and her cane clattered across the sidewalk."

What was this?

This was new!

This was different!

He was playing my game, singing my song. Soon the emails were firing back and forth, one barb exchanged for another. Each witticism deftly returned, sailing across the internet like a well-placed badminton birdie.

And so it was that FredFromFresno and SpinDoctor510 fell in a deep state of like. Eventually we took our email conversations to the phone, and once on the phone, he asked me out on a real-live date. We discussed the logistics of the date, of course. I lived in Troy, he lived in Birmingham. We decided to meet in Royal Oak. It was convenient for both of us.

"I used to live in Birmingham," I said.

"Oh really? Where?" he asked.

"Downtown."

"Downtown where?"

I named the cross streets.

"Where exactly on those streets?"

I named the specific street.

"Where on that street?"

Well this was getting awfully specific.

"SW or NE corner?" he continued.

"I don't do directions! Why does it matter!?!" I laughed.

Finally, I simply told him the names of the neighbors on either side of my ex's house.

"Oh my god!" he said. "You're ___________'s ex!" and he named my ex.

"You know him?"

"I live two doors down!"

We both paused in stunned silence.

"How is it that I never met you?" I was confused.

"I rented out that house and bought a bigger house!"

"And you moved back?"

"Yes, I moved back in after my wife and I separated!"

"So you live two doors down my from my ex?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

More stunned silence between the two of us. This was new.

"Does this mean you don't want to go out with me?" I asked.

"No. I still want to go out with you."

"Well I still want to go out with you too."

"So I'll see you on Thursday?"

"Yep."

"See ya, neighbor."

"Very funny."

I married him five years later. Give or take a few hiccups and missteps. We made a cute baby girl along the way. And now I live two doors down from my son's father. Life is funny. Life is strange. But somehow, it all works out just the way it's supposed to.

And it all started out with a wink and a couple of smartasses.

Meet Cute.

Warning: Falling in love may result in babies.

Have you heard of "Meet Cute?" It's the cute story of how you met your significant other. It sounds like "Meat Cube" to me.

I'd like to thank Erin at Musings of a Madwoman for letting me know about this new Internet slang. I like to be in the know of all things linguistic.

Do you know the story of how I meat cubed my husband?

I found him on Match.com. I love online dating. It's just like catalog shopping. For example, you could go to J.Crew and select a cashmere sweater in Eolian Harp blue, then go on Match.com and select an attorney in Tall, Dark and Handsome!

As my son would say, "Easy. Peasey. Lemon squeezey."

All kidding aside, when I found my Cute Meet on Match.com I had been on the service for five or six months with no action. I hadn't met anyone. I wasn't interested. Nothing was going anywhere. My heart wasn't in it, to be honest.

But then I decided I needed to get over it. I needed to get out. So I made a solemn vow to my girlfriends that I would find someone cute and meet him live and in person within the next week. As God as my witness. And then I raised my staff towards the heavens, lightening and thunderbolts surged forth from the sky and connected with my mighty staff.

I went on Match that night and clicked through pages and pages of faces all wanting to be my next boyfriend. Just kidding. As an unwed mother of a one-year-old child, I didn't think my chances were too good. Yet one cute face did stop me in my tracks and so I read his profile. He was smart. He could construct sentences. He didn't make any grammatical errors. And he was hot so I did the unthinkable.

I "winked" at him.

I know. So embarrassing.

If you've never online dated, a "wink" is a digital wink. You press a little smiley face button and it sends a message to that person that "So-and-So has winked at you!" Basically it's a spineless way of trying to strike up a conversation.

I never initiate dating with men. I don't call. I don't text. I don't make eye contact in a bar. I am the tall girl standing by the wall staring at my feet, probably turning red if I think you're cute. It's a wonder I've ever dated at all.

So the wink is significant. It shows you how serious I was about going on a date within the next seven days. I had to take desperate measures because I was on Match.com without a profile picture. This is certain death in the dating world. If you don't have a picture, chances are you're going to have to either email someone or wink at them.

Though I had no profile picture, what I did have was an incredibly witty and charming profile page. I figure if I couldn't entice the denizens of Match.com men into my lady lair with an enticing photo, I could at least woo them with my words. I wrote something off the wall and batty. As crazy as a loon. I wrote the anti-profile whereupon I listed what I was looking for in a man in the most outrageous and ridiculous fashion.

One of the things I mentioned I was looking for in a perspective mate was someone who was "Mean to old ladies." I emphasized the importance of this quality and how it was basically a deal-breaker for me. It's sort of amazing I didn't attract serial killers, to be honest.

My future-husband emailed back right away.

"You are a smart ass. I like that."

When I read those words, my heart beat a little faster. This is how you romance me. He then proceeded to tell me in great detail about his unbridled hatred for old ladies.

"Why just today I splayed an old-blue hair and her cane across the sidewalk."

It was like corresponding with Don Juan with this one. How could I not fall in love?

The emails sailed back and forth and I don't think either one of us got much done over the next few days of trying to outdo one another. We told all our most outrageous stories. We riffed off each other's verbal tags. I laughed so hard I cried while reading his words. We spoke on the phone and I laughed under the covers in my bed while my son slept in a port-a-crib nearby.

My future-husband asked me out sight unseen.

He never saw a picture of me but had to meet me. I think we both felt like we'd met our best friend. And to this day I really believe he liked me for me. For the essence of who I was on paper. After he asked me out, I did finally send him a picture. Mainly so he would recognize me when we met. Also so he could back out if he wanted.

What I didn't know was that he printed that photo out and kept it in his wallet. Which reminds me of when my mother found a photo of herself in my step-father's wallet after he died. She'd never known that he carried a picture of her with him everywhere he went.

When we finally went on a date, I met my future husband at a wine bar in a local downtown area. I walked through the door and kind of hung there uncertainly, as I am wont to do. I scanned the bar trying to find the face I winked at online. Then he turned around. He was in his suit and tie. The white collars of his shirt were stark against his dark skin. He stood up and I watched him as he walked towards me. We shook hands and it was evident we were both nervous and overly polite.

But I felt butterflies.