Category Archives: relationship

blind date, relationship, writer's challenge

The Memorable Blind Date (sort of)

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Mama Kat ‘s up for yet another writer’s challenge . This week’s choices left me hanging a bit. But then I decided to follow Mama Kat ‘s lead and modify the prompt a bit. Mama said:

1.) Tell us about a memorable blind date.

2.) Other than the birth of a child or your wedding, write about a joyous moment.

3.) Write about one of the most difficult decisions you have made in your life.

4.) Share the best picture you took last month and explain why it’s your favorite

But all of these prompts left me in a quandary. So I decided to write about the nearest thing to a blind date I have ever been on. (Coincidentally, it is also one of those joyous moments that formed another prompt.)

The Prelude:
I was an antisocial brainiac nerd in high school. Being huge, a football player, outspoken, smart, and an egotist conspired to make me one of the least popular people amidst my peers. Even so, I did some dating, just not a lot. Sophomore year of high school, a really neat girl moved to the area and was assigned to the seat beside me in biology class. Over the course of the next few weeks I became smitten with her. She was beautiful and smart and fun and … So I finally ramped up my courage and asked her out for a Friday night. I was planning to attend the school play with her.

When I asked, she immediately told me no, she couldn’t go out then because her grand parents were visiting. Ok, a minor shoot down. I could live with that. But then on the Friday night in question she shows up at the play sans grand parents, making it real clear I was snubbed. We didn’t really speak to each other much after that. At least not for the next few years. We both dated other people, but saw each other in classes and in church group.

The Blind Date:
Senior year, just before Halloween, I got invited to a big Halloween party being held in a country barn by some classmates. Given the description of my popularity above, such invites were not a common occurrence in my life. I figured that something must be up, but wasn’t sure what it could be.

And then she, the neat girl from above, talked to me. It was clear that she was hoping I was going to attend. So I said yes and along with my lifelong friend G (mentioned here) attended the party. I spent most of the evening talking to the girl in question. It was clear we both were entranced and felt something growing. After the party was over, I convinced her to go driving the streets with me and G (or it may have been she convinced me – I was in an euphoric cloud and don’t remember). G was the perfect wingman, driving us all around while we talked and talked. (And in looking back on it, I owe G. a lot for being so nice that night.) The upshot was that the evening had become somewhat of a blind date.

The Aftermath:
The next week she and I went out on our first official date. We survived the flashing of the porch lights by her dad as we sat and talked for hours past her curfew. We became a couple. We dated and saw each other and fell deeper and deeper in love. We survived the separation of attending colleges thousands of miles apart and attempts to break up and … That was 36 years ago and we have now been married  for 33+ years. G. was one of my groomsmen when we got married. Yes, that’s right. The girl who shot me down, snubbed me, and was the object of mutual avoidance for several years is my lovely wife L. All goes to show that first attempts don’t mean everything. And that love can win out.

P.S. The answer to yesterday’s question is have a birthday. May 22 is the day with the lowest birth rate in the United States.

age, cell, distance, IM, relationship

Telephones, IM, Relationships, and Age

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This article in the  New York Times had an interesting remark in passing:

“… But today, married women are more likely to spend late hours at the office and travel on business. And even for women who stay home,  cellphones, e-mail and instant messaging appear to be allowing them to form more intimate relationships, marriage therapists say. …”

So it would appear that there are changes in relationships moderated by cell phones and instant messaging.

The last ten months has been an interesting time in my life relative to the above thesis. My wife has been in the process of opening a new business 3+hours drive from here. Thus she lives in another community during the week and we see each other only on the weekends, and not every weekend at that. Thus we spend a fair amount of time on the telephone (we are neither one big IM’ers, although we do exchange some email). The phone, in general, is not an implement well suited to conveying emotional messages, especially for our generation which grew up with the expensive AT&T monopoly during our formative telephone years.

By way of example, when we were in college, we could, if we kept and eye on the clock, afford to call home for five minutes once per week or less. Now with cell phone minute plans, it is easy to talk whenever and for as long as the spirit moves you. Unfortunately, I am not sure the old once a week method didn’t lead to a better emotional connection than the every day anytime method. With the once a week call, you planned ahead, both parties arranged for the time to be free of distractions, and you very carefully mentally edited the topics of discussion to convey the emotional message most important to you at the time. Now with the anytime call, there is a lack of that planning and the addition of the random interruption factor as well. It can be very disconcerting when one is eager to convey something that is exciting and interesting and you either get shuffled off to voice mail or you get the other party but they are tied up and all you get is the old “I’m tied up right now with ABC. I’ll call you back when its over. Bye.”

The current situation is interesting because I can remember going through a similar thing in the early years of our married life when I was in California and she was in Illinois. Then the change in the AT&T monopoly was just starting and long distance was still very expensive (and cell phones but a gleam in the future with the first email message not due to be sent for a year of more). Thus it was the once or twice a week phone call rather than the call on spur of the moment. It meant that many upsetting events in day to day life were elided from the conversations. It also meant that the ambush phone call where one spouse or the other desperately needs emotional support *right now* didn’t occur often and when they did you knew it was a very serious issue.

Now we can call each other at any time. Unfortunately, we both spend a lot of time in meetings with the ringer turned off. Thus we have adapted to a modified version of the old methods where we generally call each other at the same time every day. There are sporadic extra calls as things come up that need to be discussed. I suspect that if we were thirty years younger in our twenties, the patterns of contact (including IMing) would be completely different. What do you think? Does the presence of cell phone and IM really constitute a difference in the intimacy factor in relationships? Is the change for the good?