It All Began…

Not long ago I found a shop on Etsy that sells custom prints that you can hang in your house that gives a sneak peek of when you and your partner first met. That got me to thinking about what I would put on one if ever I ordered it and it got me thinking about me and The Cuban.

I don’t often think about how The Cuban and I met but when I tell people that we are a couple who met “online” their eyebrows seem to raise and their suspicions increase. If I bother to go one step further and tell them that he read my blog and we started an e-mail friendship that eventually moved into a romantic relationship they are even more suspicious. We used to read each other’s blogs many years ago and didn’t even pay all that much attention to each other except in the “Oh. Hey. I remember you.” kind of way and then we would catch up on each other’s lives and move on, largely ignoring one another.

One day, we were chatting online with a mutual friend and she suggested that we all combine our chats so we could talk together. When she asked me, I agreed. When she asked him, he hesitated. His objections were that he wasn’t too fond of me and that I was highly opinionated (as far as he could tell from reading my blog) and that I was probably really bossy and arrogant in real life (from what he inferred from reading my blog). When he tells the story to this day I correct him and say that he really thought I was confident which, of course, I am, but he rolls his eyes and tells me that I remember things in a way that always paints me in a better light. To be blunt, The Cuban didn’t like me. Only he wasn’t known as “The Cuban” back then. He had a different name and persona and I thought we would probably get along because he seemed like a nice enough guy.

It took many months of chatting casually before we even began a friendship and even then, there were no romantic notions on either part. The best thing about a new relationship is, well, the newness of it. The excitement and wondering how things would go on our first date, the possibilities of being the best version of yourself after taking what you’d learned from previous relationships, and, of course, the physical attraction. It’s funny when two people go from being friends to considering each other as a romantic partner. I recall having some conversation with him about women with cankles and I laughed it off thinking that he was being silly. It came up again before we ever met in person and he asked, “I hate to do this, but what are your ankles like?”

I satiated his curiosity with a full-length picture of myself.

Our first date was in St. Louis. He was traveling around the country for work, staying in hotels and finding things out about himself that he couldn’t do while staying put in the Springfield, Missouri. We found it coincidental that we had both lived in towns named Springfield except it’s so common that maybe that was bound to happen. I have had friends sheepishly admit to finding love on dating websites and the shame that used to surround such a thing, but I am not convinced that you will find your life partner if you limit yourself to your college campus or the 20 mile radius around your home.

We met at a restaurant on the lower level of the hotel he was staying at for the week. My expectations were great after having a friendship with him for so long and I knew that if we met in person and didn’t find each other attractive we might have remained friends and I would just stay with my friend Samara who lived in St. Louis. I also knew that if dinner went well, I wouldn’t get a chance to visit Samara that weekend. It was a Friday night and I left work for the 90 minute drive wearing my business-y suit and a pair of black patent leather heels with no stockings. The only reason I mention that is because when I don’t wear stockings with these shoes my feet tend to sweat and I drove to our date wondering if my smelly feet would turn him off completely. I kept calling my friend Samara asking her, “This is crazy, right? Am I crazy to meet someone off the Internet for a date?” because, of course, everyone assumes the other party is an ax murderer. Why our brains go directly to “ax murderer” is a mystery.

Samara calmed  me down and told me to trust myself and my instincts to remember that I was a grown, single woman who hadn’t had a date in years and to carry pepper spray just in case.

At this point, I just wanted to spray it on my feet so he wouldn’t notice that they were sweaty and stinky.

I called him when I got to the hotel and dropped off my car at the valet parking. As I drove, I kicked off my shoes and let the air conditioner blow dry my feet. That, of course, made the whole car smell like Cool Ranch Doritos. He told me he was already in the restaurant and said to take the winding staircase down to meet him. Kindly, he said that if I wanted to back out that now was the time. Any man who is that sweet couldn’t possibly be wielding an ax for a date. I got halfway down before I realized my shoes were slipping off my feet with each step so I stopped to readjust them and wiggled my ankles back and forth to get them on again. However, I didn’t realize that from where I was standing on the steps he could see me adjust my shoes.

All he could see was the bottom half of my body and my black patent leather heels. Later, he told me that it was the sexiest thing he could recall watching a woman do. Especially since I wasn’t overtly trying to be sexy.

Dinner went great. I never went to visit Samara that weekend.

It all began when he read my blog and I read his. Then, he moved around the country and settled in Chicago. Finally, I wiggled my non-cankle ankles while standing on a staircase and that hooked him for good when he decided to move here to really make this thing work. It all began right here on the very blog you’re reading.

Well, that and a great pair of shoes.