Monday, January 7, 2013

How We Met

     I was sitting in my regular spot at Tom's Diner on the South Side of Pittsburgh writing in my journal and drinking coffee when a very handsome man walked in and sat at the counter next to me. When the waitresses saw him, they yelled in unison"Debbie Downer!" One of the waitresses went over to him and asked him if he had found a girlfriend yet. I felt my heart skip a beat in anticipation of the answer. He sadly said "Not yet". I hoped he would talk to me. After he ordered his breakfast, he watched tv for awhile, but I could sense he was building up the courage to say something to me. Finally, he said "What are you writing?" I said "Just some random thoughts and ideas". He seemed very interested and asked if I was a writer. I said "Not really, but I like to write". He asked me if he could read something I had written. I never let people read the things I write, but I trusted him for some reason. I handed him my journal and asked him to read what I had just written only. He read it half out loud and with wide eyed excitement and when he finished, he said "I think you are really talented and you should do something with this". We talked for about a half an hour while he finished his breakfast and we exchanged names and phone numbers before he left. His name was Eric. The next day, I got a call from the handsome stranger, but I was afraid to answer. Then he followed it up with a text that said"Do you want to come over and swim in my pool?" It was a good suggestion since it was a very hot summer day, but I didn't feel comfortable wearing a bathing suit in front of the handsome stranger, so I didn't respond.
     I never heard from or saw him again...for about a year.  And  then one day I was playing basketball and stopped into a local pool hall to visit some friends. The handsome stranger came in with an extremely tall friend of his. He came over to me and asked if we could play basketball. I said sure. I handed him my basketball and we went to the park. He was not very good at basketball but his tall friend was. We played horse and pig for awhile and we once again introduced ourselves to eachother. I looked much different than I had when we first met and he didn't recognize me. We exchanged names and phone numbers again and that very night, I lost my phone and had to get another phone number, but this time, he looked me up on facebook and sent me a message with his phone number. I called him and talked briefly about how I lost my phone, but we didn't connect the way we had the first time we met and I was a little bothered that he didn't remember me from before.
     I never heard from or saw him again...for about a year. And then I started noticing he and his tall friend had a pattern. They would go to the spelling bee at Lava Lounge on Monday nights and rock 'n' roll bingo at Tiki Lounge on Tuesday nights, so I would go to those places in the hopes that he would talk to me again. He would say hi occasionally and sometimes he would say he thought he recognized me, but I was too shy to say much back, and he would invariably move on to talk to his other friends. One time, we had a chance to have a bit of a longer conversation, and I mentioned that we had met years earlier without going into detail. He asked if I wanted to go to his house to watch movies and have a steak. I don't care for movies or steak, but I really liked him, so I said sure. We watched some movies and had a really nice steak dinner in his little studio apartment on the river and then I said thank you and told him I would catch the bus home. I was about 10 miles from my house, but I felt like walking, so I did. Eventually, he stopped going to the spelling bee and tiki lounge.
     I never heard from or saw him again...for about a year. And then, one day, I thought of him and our nice dinner and a movie night, and I drove to his house at 5 in the morning. I couldn't remember his apartment number, so I was afraid to ring the doorbell. Since I lost another phone, I wasn't sure how to get in touch with him. Then I remembered the facebook message he sent me with his phone number in it. I went to a local copy store that had computer time for rent that opened at 7am and looked for the message from years earlier and found it. I called him at 8am and built up the courage to leave him a message. He called me back at 11am on his first break from work. He was really excited to hear from me and wanted to come to my house after work. I gave him my address. He came over at 5:30pm. He was wearing a nice suit jacket and looked even better than I had remembered. We laughed and talked for hours on my porch and reminisced about all the times we had met. We decided this time we wouldn't lose touch. He came over after work every day after that. I started having trouble with my roommate and he suggested I come stay with him. I went to his house and after awhile, we developed a very strong close bond. We decided very quickly to be boyfriend and girlfriend and we started making plans for me to move out of my house and in with him officially. He encouraged me to start writing again and I encouraged him to pursue his dreams with his internet business. We have been together now for about 6 months and I have never been happier. One day, Eric asked me if I could remember how we met. He loved the story of missed connections so much he asked me to write it down for him. He wanted more people to read it, so he started me a website and a blog and this is the story of how we met.