My, How Time Flies

Four years ago I worked from home, and there were several printer/fax/copier machines in the busy home office.

One day my son called and said he was in the area and would like to stop by to use a fax and work on some paperwork. No problem. When my son arrived, he introduced me to a colleague and they sat at the dining room table and soon had papers strewn around. I re-focussed on my work.

When my son and his friend entered my office area to use fax machines, the friend looked at my computer. I was living in a duplex at that time and my son asked if I had found a tenant for the other unit. His friend asked if I had placed an ad in craigslist yet and I replied no but that I had heard of it from a couple other people. The young man, who is a super whiz on computers, walked over and stroke, stroke, stroke, put craigslist in my bookmarks. I had two simultaneous thoughts: Wow, I thought I could type fast; and How brash for this guy to put something on my computer without me asking.

The next day I began searching around on craigslist and giggled when I saw "women seeking men" and "men seeking women". I clicked on "men seeking women" thinking how fun it was going to be to tell my friend Linda about it when I talked to her later. I read a few ads, got the gist of them, started losing interest and then a heading caught my eye. I clicked on this ad, read it, and proceeded to email this guy immediately, which was totally not like me at all to contact someone I did not know. My sole purpose in emailing him was to ask him what he was doing on craigslist because he made too much sense. His ad was not like any of the others at all. And then I wished him luck in his search and said I bet he got lots of replies to his ad. I did not expect to hear from him.

The reply was easy going and said there had only been three answers to his ad. We began emailing back and forth. We learned more about each other. Then he sent his phone number in case I felt like calling him sometime. I called a friend of mine who had met her husband online and talked to her. She convinced me to call him. My hands were sweating when I shakily dialed his number. His voice on the phone was even better than his emails. Still not even considering meeting him and still not even thinking of finding a relationship, I relaxed into getting to know him as a possible friend. I had a couple guy friends that I went to ball games with and movies and have always had relaxed relationships with guys.

After many hours on the phone, we both were looking forward to meeting in person. I had seen a picture of him in his ad, but he had not seen one of me. His ad even stated that "what you look like is not as important as how you sound". We agreed to meet in front of a buffet style restaurant halfway between our two homes. When he asked what color my hair was or what I would be wearing so he could identify me, I told him I would be in casual clothes, I had blond hair, and I would probably be there a little early and I would be reading a book as I always carried a book with me and I am always early. I heard a little gasp but it wasn't until I had known him awhile that I learned what that meant to him. He too is always early and always reading, a book always with him.

I arrived early, was reading and glanced up to see the guy in the picture walking toward the front of the restaurant. I walked toward him to shake his hand and we went inside to get food. We talked over five hours!!! We actually had fun. When we shook hands good bye in front of the restaurant, he said he would like to do that again soon and I said so would I.

The following week we were emailing and talking on the phone and when he emailed a list of movies playing at a theater near the restaurant of our meeting face to face, we arranged to meet in front of the theater the next weekend.

That was almost four years ago.