Valentines my great aunt sent me from the 1930s
Reasons my husband and I should not be together: 42
Years we’ve been married: 14
Number of ways ignorance and naivete can help: 167
Let me preface this post by saying that I know several couples who are happily together because of match.com or some similar service, including my sister and brother-in-law. I think it is a worthwhile service that has brought some very cute couples together.
That said, I am very glad online matchmaking services were not the way I met my husband. (Mostly because the Internet itself was in its infancy at that time, a fact that our kids are still astonished about.)
First of all, any dating service where I could get annoyed by the use of your instead of you’re, its instead of it’s, utilize instead of good ol’ use, or Ann instead of Anne (seriously, my name is spelled correctly right there, people… do a copy and paste) would get things off to a sort of negative start. Okay. I’ve had my rant for the day.
One of my friends was mentioning the other day that she was glad her date with a match.com guy had been cancelled. She happened to see a politically-motivated statement exactly the opposite of her view posted on his Facebook page. We joked with her about how intolerant of intolerance she was, and just like that, that poor guy was deleted from a future life of fun with my friend.
Another friend, who has been married for 43 years, said the little things that used to bother her have faded away as the years have gone by. I think my husband would agree that we’re not to that point yet.
Here are a few reasons why we did not look good together on paper (or wouldn’t have on match.com either):
1. He didn’t have a car. Yes, you heard me. That alone should have made me run the other way. Our first phone conversation went something like this:
Him: How about Tuesday night?
Me: Sounds good.
Him: Can you pick me up? All I have is a motorcycle.
Me: Sure! No problem!
What a difference 16 years makes. Don’t judge me. I had just graduated from a phase where I realized that men with long hair were not actually sexy, super-successful musicians like Eddie Vedder but boys who were not interested in finding jobs. The car thing simply didn’t register.
2. He spent more time on his hair than I did. Remember Jason Priestly, of 90210 fame? My future husband’s hair looked just like that. And trust me, it took a lot of work to look that good. When I arrived at his apartment to pick him up, I had to spend some time chatting up his alcoholic roommate while my future husband spent some quality time with the hair gel.
3. I liked music, he liked… a few bars of rhythmic mayhem. I had played piano and violin for years, acted as groupie for the university’s a capella group and loved going to rock concerts. My future husband enthusiastically played a measure or two of several “songs” he called “jungle,” which I’m going to guess sound much better under the influence of illegal drugs. He hated concerts because you couldn’t talk.
4. My bedroom freaked him out. In my defense, shabby chic was in. And I was poor. Shabby chic is perfect when you’re poor. But what they don’t tell you is that you can only achieve the chic part if you have money and tons of decorating expertise. When he walked through my tiny apartment to use the attached bathroom, he almost ran from the place screaming.
5. My mom thought he was going out with me to get a green card. And boy, he sure has put in way too much time with me for something that insignificant. I love the United States and all, but 14 years of marriage to stay here may be taking things too far. It also shows what a catch my mom thought I was.
And here are the reasons I liked him:
1. He was hot.
2. He had a great accent.
3. I wanted to kiss him.
I am so very glad that I did not have to decide whether to stick around with him in an era of match.com. Talk about complicated.
And… he’s still hot.
Writing by the Numbers 