Can you believe it? I'm actually remembering to post this, and on a Wednesday even! This is two weeks in a row.
But really, the first week doesn't count. It was the day I thought of (stole) the idea...and I was trying to find a catchy title for it. "Way back When-sday" is catchy, right???
Anyway.....
I got a request from friend Izzy at Escape from Dullsville for the story of how Mother Nature, Karma (or whomever you think we should blame) brought Mot and Nej together.
When people ask where we met, the short and sweet answer is "Fencing." Yep...pointy sharp objects, funny masks and all.
But, the short answer just isn't going to do for a Way Back When-sday post, will it? Nope!!!
Mot's side of the story basically (and I mean basically) goes like this....
"My mom fell off their back deck while painting the house, so I left school (getting his PhD) to come home and help dad take care of her. (side note, mom recovered fully) After I'd been back from Illinois for a while, I decided to look up some friends. We'd been fencing together for years. I arrived at fencing, one Sunday afternoon, and saw this chick. She had big hair and a nice butt. We started dating, I moved in, we got married."
You'd have to ask him for the expanded version, but I haven't gotten much more out of him than the big hair and nice butt comment. :-)
Nej's side of the story goes something like this.....
I hadn't dated much previous to meeting Mot. I'd just come off of my second 4-year relationship, and was currently dating a dude older than my dad.
(Yes, yes, I know...I can hear you all now.....ewwwwww!!!! But come on, give me a chance to explain. I was convinced that any male my age - or even close - had the brain power and relationship availability of a 1 year old. He was good looking...in a Sean Connery, Harrison Ford kind of way. He had a good paying job, WASN'T a musician (both of the 4-year relationships were with musicians - ugh!), and he seemed to really want to make me happy. He wasn't self-absorbed and selfish. He was from Arizona, tanned, and wore loafers and no socks with his suits.)
These things probably don't explain my behavior, but this is the story of how I met Mot, not old guy Eric (yeah, that's what my friends called him). :-)
So, old guy Eric moved...I was crushed, and decided that relationships, in general, were a thing to steer clear of totally. I needed hobbies, I needed things to do that didn't involve going with a boyfriend.
That day, I kid you not, my best buddy called me and was telling me about this dude she met at work. He taught fencing classes. Fencing! How cool is that? Let's do it! I was game, so we signed up.
The first day of fencing, I kid you not, the first day.....this dude walks into the building. He was wearing rugged "I actually go outside" shorts, a Coors Light tshirt, and sandals. When he walked into the room, everyone looked at him. He wasn't talking, and he didn't make an entrance, he just had this "thing" about him. All of the fencers that seemed to be friends and seemed to have known each other for quite some time even stopped to look at him when he came in. They all went to him, talked to him...he was the center of attention. But not because he demanded it. It was because, well....sometimes people just demand attention without knowing it.
I could tell that he was someone I wanted to get to know. Ugh! I didn't even last one week into my mission of swearing off men forever! Damn it!
I had come straight from work (I managed a grocery store at the time)...so I wasn't dressed to meet someone new. My hair was out of control curly because it had been a crazy day at work. I was wearing grubby jeans and a really ugly polo shirt (that I can picture in my head to this day).
I thought to myself "how can I find out who this dude is, meet him when I look better...while still avoiding him today?"
I sat down in a chair next to my best bud, and did my best to ignore him.
The person that my best friend worked with, the instructor of the fencing classes we'd signed up for, came over. He wanted to go out with me, and said he had a friend he was going to fix up with my friend.
Ugh! This dude just creeped me out, and now he...of all the people in this room...he wanted to go out with me. Makes my swearing off of men all the easier, if you ask me! He walked away while seeming to ignore the look of disgust I must have had on my face. When he returned, guess who he had with him??
Mr Coors Light tshirt! The dude I wanted to date!!! Ugh...you can't fix him up with my friend!!!
It was about then, they called the fencing club to it's end for the day. We all went to the bar down the street for drinks. (I found out later, they really did more socializing than fencing.)
We crammed like 14 people into a booth...then drank the afternoon and evening away.
At one point, Mr. Coors Light asked my friend if she was a masochist. (she is) I asked him "definition 1 or definition 2?" Look it up, there were (at the time) two definitions in Webster's Dictionary. One is liking pain in a general sense...two is liking pain when it comes to sex.
Anyway.......Coors Light gave me the strangest look. Which, it turns out, was him realizing that he couldn't live the rest of his life without me. How was I supposed to know that not speaking one word all night, and then asking a simple question was the key to his heart? :-) :-)
I had decided, while sitting in that booth with a bunch of strangers...staring at Mr. Coors Light, that I was not going to be the one to ask him out. I was always the one that asked men out, and you see how well that was going so far. I wasn't going to ask him out, I wasn't going to ask his name. HE needed to make all the moves, ask all the questions, and show the initiative. 100%
If he did all of that, it was meant to be.
The night was getting late, I had to work uber early the next morning, so I left. As I'm walking to my car, I was getting more and more bummed. He didn't ask me anything. He just said goodnight. Ugh! Oh well.
A few days later, I'd forgotten about Mr. Coors Light. My buddy (that convinced me to go fencing with her - which was fun by the way!!) called me. She says "you'll never guess what I'm calling to ask you!!"
It turns out Mr. Coors Light was searching the world over to find me. He was asking all kinds of people if they knew me...and none of them did. (I'm such a wallflower, I'm the wind, no one knows I'm there, unless I blow your patio furniture over or something.) :-)
He had called a friend, who called a friend, who called a friend...etc, etc....who eventually called my buddy.
I, quite calmly, told her it was ok to give him my number. (while internally I was jumping for joy...NO ONE had ever sought me out...never!!!)
He called the next day, and asked me to meet him for lunch. (seems he didn't know I lived an hour away) We decided to meet for dinner instead.
That's pretty much how it happened. We went out to dinner with a friend of his along (guess he didn't trust me for dinner alone??) Then we went out on a date date later that weekend. All of his belongings were moved into my house within a month, and we got married a year and a half later.
The End
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