Wow, Reyn, that's fantastic!
Okay, more details on our story.
It was 1988. I had, earlier that year, broken up with a rat of a boyfriend. I was 25 (turned 26 that September), out of college and Law School and was having a lot of trouble meeting men. And I really wanted to, but mainly to have fun. I had had it (so I thought) with serious relationships and wanted to at least have a good time. I was tired of doing little else but work.
RP, on the other hand, was 23 and working. He, too, could not find the time or place to meet people. He did not want to do a bar scene.
Early that summer, I ran my own ad, but in Newsday, the Long Island newspaper. It said something about, "I like everything from 10,000 Maniacs to Mozart, Bosch to the beach, I'm blonde, 25 and want to know where you would take me on our second date."
I got over 50 responses, went out with maybe 30 of those guys, I kid you not. Most did not go past the first date. Only two guys went to a third date. And that's where I was stuck for much of the summer. So I started answering men's ads, first in Newsday but, when those men generally proved to be either older or just not what I was looking for, I switched over to the Village Voice personals. The people tended to be funkier and less settled, more arty and educated and less already-set-in-their ways.
Again, I went out with some guys and never got past date #3. This was getting ridiculous. So I decided, the last weekend before Christmas was it. I figured that Christmas and New Year's week would stink for ads (if there were any), plus that would have more than a slight whiff of desperation. Plus, it was a goal, and end to strive for. I figured, if I didn't meet anyone at least decent, I would at least do things like try to lose weight and get my hair done differently and perhaps put my same ad out again, but this time in the Voice.
In early December, I saw his ad. It was pretty minimalistic and normally I would not have been too interested, but I thought it was kinda goofy, so I figured, what the heck. So I answered his ad which, at that time, involved writing a letter to a PO box, in which I included my home #. He called maybe 2 days afterwards and we got to talking. And talking. And talking. 2 hours went by. We agreed to go on a date that Friday. It was a Tuesday.
Wednesday, he called again, told me, "I couldn't wait. Can we meet earlier?" We talked for another two hours and agreed to meet the following day. He took the Long Island Rail Road out to meet me, we met at the Mineola train station. We greeted each other by kissing.
We had Italian that night, dang, I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant but they had a great Caesar salad and I think we shared that.
When I brought him home later (I drove into Manhattan, where he was living at the time), we agreed to meet again and that he would call me. And he did! He kept his word, unlike so many other men I've known. He told me, later, that when we were saying good-bye that night at his apartment, that he knew already that that was it.
When I next spoke with my mother on the phone, a few days afterwards, she asked me how things were going, and I said, "Mom, I met someone."
We first dated on December 18th, 1988, he moved into my apartment in January of 1990, which is when we got engaged, and we were married on May 25th, 1992.
Yeah, I met someone.
