when did you know?

Last fall, I conducted a “deep dive dating survey” which was an effort born out of hours spent with friends discussing dating in the age of apps. Instead of just guessing about dating successes and misfires, I decided to gather some data about how people find true love in a digital world (especially since my most recent dating experience was in 1994). I was fascinated by the survey responses and continued to talk to my peers about what they meant and how we could support our adult kids in finding compatible partners. 

While discussing the perspectives expressed in my informal survey, we could not help but to compare and contrast with our own love stories. My close friend Maisun offered that she knew she was in love with her husband when “instead of asking her for a tennis lesson, he asked if he could watch her play.” This comment created a little light bulb above my head and I decided to ask a sampling of my close friends about when “they knew” their spouse was their person.  Presented below are their responses. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. And, if you are single and looking, let our analog love stories be an inspiration to you!

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We were both accountants working at the same firm. He asked me out a few times and I kept saying no. Eventually, I decided he was kind of hot while he was leading a 401K seminar – and that is definitely only something an accountant would find funny. 

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When he walked into Ponchos (a favorite UCLA bar in the early 1990’s) in February of our senior year,  I thought to myself… “Where has HE been for the last four years?”  I watched him walk across the room and told my girlfriend that I needed to go talk to him. He saw me come towards him and did a double take. He said,”I met you at the golf course.” He meant where we used to tailgate at The Rose Bowl – not an actual golf course. I replied, “I’ve never golfed with you.” He tells me that’s when he became really interested…she golfs.

We started dating and I was pretty smitten, pretty quick. We planned a weekend trip. He came to pick me up and when we were ready to drive away from the Kappa house, he asked, “drive north or south?” We went north and found a motel in Pismo Beach. In the tiny room, where the bathroom door couldn’t open all the way because it hit the bed, my future husband laid out a beach towel and set out Tupperware containers with strawberries he had washed and cut along with cream and champagne.  I thought to myself, “This is how life is supposed to be.”  I knew right then and there he was the one.

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Originally, we met through mutual friends. He first caught my eye when he walked up to talk to me as I was driving…he complimented my Jeep. I had a soft spot for him from that moment on.  

Then there was  a sighting on the roof of an apartment building in Westwood. I was tanning with friends and he came up with his buddies because he had heard that I was up there.  We didn’t talk but I was very happy he was there and we actually have photos from that day on the roof with him pretending to read a book. 

We started dating on the first night back to school after holiday break.  I went to a party at his apartment. I knew this was his apartment. I wore a new sweater that I had gotten for Xmas—I remember the exact one (turtle neck, bluish purple, with a fair isle weave).  We hung out all night and ended up heading over to Manhattan Beach with a crew (side note: our driver was actor Will Forte).  We came back to his apartment and I slept over—me on the couch, him on the floor next to me — but we held hands all night (although when I think about that, I don’t know how that would be even possible with us on two different levels).  

I was definitely smitten with him.  Our first official date after that sealed the deal.  We scheduled a date to go “buy books” after he got off work, and then  went to a casual dinner (FYI this would be the first time he had actually bought books at UCLA).  He worked at campus transit as a bus driver and was running late, so he showed up to the sorority in his bus!  Imagine my friends all looking out the window and giggling at the fact that he pulled up in a bus.  He opened the bus door (the visual is actually good), and I ascended and sat in the front seat.  He proceeded to drive the bus to the garage where we then traded the shuttle bus for his dirt bike. I got on the back, leaned in, and it was over.  My love.  

At this point though, I wasn’t thinking of marriage at all — that was nowhere near my consciousness—I had a lot of life in front of me before I was going to think of marriage.  When did I know for sure I would marry him? I went to live in Italy for a year with a friend after college graduation.  He finished off getting his degree and then came over six months later.  I knew he was my forever one pretty quickly – being separated from the comforts of home, having to navigate the challenges and stresses of life in a foreign country, experiencing times that were exciting and also dull as hell (think playing endless games on long, long train trips).  We worked – we made each other better.  That is when I knew.

* * * 

We met at the University of Washington and started out as friends. We were part of the same big, fun group – Phi Delts and a mix of sororities – and we all did a lot together: played on a softball team, went weekend bar-hopping, rush trips, study sessions, etc. It was completely platonic… until we realized he was leaving for a couple of months in Australia.

One night after hanging out at our local college bar (Lox Stock and Bagel), he walked me home. As we stood on the porch of my sorority house saying goodbye, it hit both of us that we wouldn’t be seeing each other for a while. Something shifted, and we had our first kiss – and it happened to be snowing, which made it feel even more memorable.

While he was away, he sent me a postcard saying he was thinking of me. The fact that it required buying a postcard, writing a note, finding a stamp, and actually mailing it (all while being teased by his brother) made it feel especially thoughtful. He wrote that he was sitting on a train listening to “Rocket Man” by Elton John – and that song has been our song ever since. When he returned, we started dating, never broke up, and the rest is history.

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Blind date….we planned to meet at 9:30 pm at a local restaurant/bar. Although it was dark when we met, she walked with a light behind her – angelic in a way. I immediately felt out of my league.  Once we sat and started talking, it was the “one in a lifetime” for me.  The date ended later than anyone thought and rolled into the second date just ten hours later (closed the bar at 2 a.m. and met at noon soon after).  After the second date, I was all-in and was hoping she felt the same way.   Fortunately for me, she did.

* * * 

We met in 1991. He was two years ahead of me at a consulting firm. I was right out of college in training on a campus outside of Chicago and he was my instructor. 

Knowing that my age and gender were big knocks on my being taken seriously, I bought two weeks worth of librarian outfits. Lots of wool blazers, turtlenecks and knee length skirts. Straight hair, tucked behind my ears. Low heels. Picture Anne Klein II and Jones New York. Incredibly frigid and unsexy. Instead of keeping him away, he appeared intrigued. He kept coming by to offer help and guidance. Apparently he liked my “tight sweaters” (they were NOT tight). He was extra respectful and extra sweet. 

Long story short, he went on to become the best long distance boyfriend a girl could ask for, for three years. Total dream boat. So thoughtful and romantic. Planned amazing trips for us. Super tender and attentive when he visited, which was almost every weekend. I think the librarian outfits set the right tone from the beginning. 

I knew he was the one when he surprised me with a ring after taking me to the most amazing seafood buffet ever at the Princeville in Kauai. I was chowing down happily, and he dragged me away from my sushi to look at the sunset. Completely surprised, with a happy belly, overlooking Hanalei Bay with the sky golden and lush green Na Pali coast in the backdrop, I thought, “This guy knows how to get things done right. I’m going for it!”

* * *

I knew he was the man for me when I sat across from him at the library and asked him for the definitions of random words I didn’t know in my reading (kind of an annoying habit for a study partner). He knew the answers. One time, he didn’t know the answer, so he got up, wandered off, looked it up in the dictionary, and came back with it. 

Or, I knew he was the man for me when he showed up to go abalone diving with my father and me in freezing waters with shark sightings in Pescadero. He had no idea what he was doing, but he showed up with a rental wetsuit and a lot of balls. Only I could tell he was terrified.

Or, this moment of knowing didn’t really happen in my head. It was more visceral. We were sitting in his red Volvo station wagon outside our college library. He was playing a Bruce Springsteen cassette, he smelled like the beach, and I wanted him to kiss me, but he didn’t. I think he held my hand instead.  I thought he was very cute, but I also had a sort of drifty-dreamy feeling that I had known him for a very long time.  It was like flying and touching down at the same time.  I definitely had to get out of my own way a few times before I married him—but that was the moment.

* * *

I knew she was the one after we went to the Black & White Ball in SF…..  she was so down to earth, but looked like a princess – Cinderella!  Anyway, I told her I loved her that night and she replied, “that’s nice.”

* * *

Derek, my best friend in Boston, was from Bermuda, and in late April 1995 we travelled there to celebrate his dad’s 65th birthday. That Friday night ten of us went to Hubie’s, a great jazz club on the back side (bad side, if you can believe it) of Hamilton. Half way through his first set, the band leader asked if anybody was celebrating anything. Our hands shot up, as did those of the people at the table next to us, where a woman was celebrating her 60th birthday. At that table was an attractive younger woman and Derek, who was seated closest to her, started hitting on her (of course). He turned on the Bermuda charm, and after a while invited her to join us at the next bar, an Irish pub. She never showed.  

The next day it rained, and Derek and I decided we would get on our mopeds and go find the woman from the night before at the Elbow Beach hotel. We found them and joined her family in the lobby piecing together a Coca Cola jigsaw puzzle. On Sunday, we chased her down at Elbow Beach again and this time her mom invited us to join them for lunch on the beach. After lunch, Derek and I walked with her on the beach. Her dad, a professional photographer, took a picture of the three of us walking the beach. As the walk ended I took my business card out of my bathing suit pocket (the value of planning ahead!) and handed it to her. Derek was mad at me for having a business card and acing him out of getting her number. Who stashes a card in their swim trunks?

A week later I got a call in the office that I share with my brother. Over the speakerphone, my secretary announced that I had a call from a woman from Bermuda. My brother gave me a WTF look. I’m still grinning 30 years later. We arranged a date and met up at her apartment a week later in NYC. We went out to Nick and Eddie’s, a great spot on Spring and Sullivan in SOHO.  Dinner lasted almost four hours, during which I asked her, “Do you think you’d be a good mother.” She looked at me like I was an idiot but, without hesitating, she said that she absolutely did. We closed the place down at 1:00 a.m. She took some convincing but I knew after one date that she was the one. She still is.

Derek and I are still friends today. He wrote a song and played it on his guitar at our wedding ceremony.

* * *

As a teaser to the full version of our meet cute, I end this sweet collection of love stories with my husband’s “when did you know” moment.

On November 8, 1994, Dianne Feinstein ran for election for her first full term as a U.S. Senator for the State of California (she had won a 2 year term in a special election in 1992). Together with my parents, I had joined the “victory” party at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. This turned out to be a long evening because California was a LOT more competitive in those days and, although Feinstein ultimately won the election, she never declared victory at the party that night. 

Feinstein’s election fate didn’t matter to me because my mind was elsewhere. Earlier that night, I asked my parents if I should start dating a woman who, over the prior six months, had become one of my best friends and an important confidante and ally as I attempted to date her roommate. That never came to be because, in a twist of fate a week prior to the election, I had been the subject of a “roommate switch” between the two best friends. Yes, you read that correctly. I had originally been romantically pursuing Courtney (someone you have heard about consistently in this blog). Courtney had literally “given” me to her best friend and roommate Denise, with her blessing to go forward and date. Thankfully and somewhat surprisingly, Denise completed the roommate switch by letting me know what happened and opening the door to starting something with me.

Now, I faced the prospect of dating a woman I was increasingly attracted to and weighing the risk that attempting to turn our relationship into a romantic one would ruin that and a whole bunch of great friendships if it failed. My parents told me that concern was idiotic and that I should jump at the chance. 

So, at about 10 p.m. that night, I found a payphone in the lobby of the Fairmont and got up the courage to call and ask her out on a real “date.” Fortunately, she said yes and as I hung up the phone and headed back to a victory party that never was, I remember thinking that I was almost certainly going to marry and spend the rest of my life with her.