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.
