Her Side of the Story

In response to Steven:

On July 3rd, 2007... I was bored during a work break and perusing Facebook. In the course of my wanderings, I found myself at the profile of an old co-worker, and in her friends section, I saw his profile picture. I had a fraction of a second to think to myself, "interesting name..." Before my intuition suddenly hit the panic button in my head.

Unfortunately, while I was blessed with strong intuition, I was also endowed with formidable skills in cognition. It's difficult for me to turn off the endlessly reflexive thinking that often overrides my intuition - which is a little bit more subtle. But at this particular moment, I was completely blindsided by the force of this feeling and clicked to read more about this mystery man of import...

A singer. Quite a bit younger than I, and a graduate of my rival school, no less! Wild mane of chocolate-colored hair, marvelous blue eyes. He was gorgeous. And his books! To my shock and delight, his favorite books included many lesser-known ones that I've loved.

The more I read, a strange and unexpected thought became increasingly insistent. It was a feeling of surety. I was perplexed and fascinated.

So, using his remarkable book list as an excuse, I friended him and sent him a message. I have never friended or messaged a random unknown person before or after that. Much as he described in his story, we wrote long messages back and forth - sometimes multiple times in a day, sometimes only once in a few weeks. We talked about our lives, our relationships, our daily activities, our interests - and I became increasingly attached. He revealed himself to be incredibly motivated, amazingly verbal and descriptive, so very thoughtful and exuberant and musical and brilliant... And he was also alternately single and taken, and single and taken, and single again, while I was not single at any point during our correspondence.

I went to see La Traviata last October, hoping that I'd have a chance to perhaps speak to him or at least meet him in person, but it was not to be - I enjoyed it nonetheless! Time passed. The holidays came and went, we continued our letters... Suddenly it was spring, and I saw that he was going to be the lead tenor in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard. I was excited for him! I asked my mother if she'd be interested in seeing Steven's opera with me, and she was, duh, of COURSE!

We arrived at the theatre, purchased our tickets, and sat down to watch. When the first young man came onstage (a minor character), she asked, "Is that him?" I gave her a *look* of utter disdain. "Are you sure? He's not bad!" she said. "Mama, he's the lead tenor, just you wait," I told her. And damn! Ah! I was taken aback. Such a beautiful, rich voice - and he was funny and buoyant and such a natural performer. The more I listened, the more I felt fiercely... Proud? Of a person I'd never spoken face-to-face with?!

On our way out, the sure feeling was back. No, it had been there all along, but it was just more intense - I had known that we were going to meet as soon as I arrived at the theatre. Space-time shifted subtly to concede to our inevitability, and our paths just naturally and inexorably converged in the lobby for the very first time. The magnetic pull between us was evident even to my mother, who was breathless and wondering and eager to meet the star of the show. He and I hugged and chatted and went our separate ways, but on the way to the car, my mother said something to the effect of, "um, he's it, for you. Why not him?!"

And then, we proceeded to talk and talk and talk, like he said, and he went off to Norway for his job. Before he left, he asked me to recommend a book to read during his journey. After pondering, I settled on Pat Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. Which he devoured. And then we talked and talked and talked. We were talking all day, from the moment I awoke to the minute I went to bed. He was so singularly engaging that my motivation for waking up in the morning was to talk to him.

Just before he returned to the U.S., Steven became more insistent. I turned off the cognition, stopped ignoring the relentless kicking of my intuition and decided to do what felt so completely right. When he audaciously informed me that I'd be going on a date with him and inquired whether Thursday would work out for me, I responded, simply:

"Thursday's fine."

And, a year to the day after sending him that first message, I walked into our chosen venue (an upscale Indian place), recognized his lovely tumbled mop of hair from across the room, sat down at the table across from him, and looked into his stage makeup-less and gorgeous face. I handed him a book. :)

I've never looked back.

<3