Happy endings have to start somewhere 2
My wife had cheated on me with two of my best friends, I was unemployed, and I was a mess. But a few weeks later, I had cut my hair, bought new clothes, shaved my pitiful excuse for a beard, started working out every day, and got a part-time sales job while taking real estate classes.
A year after the divorce, I started thinking about jumping into the dating pool again. I'm not the type of guy who picks up girls at bars, and I was not interested in trying to convert any of my friends into something more, so I joined a book club. I wasn't necessarily expecting to find someone there, but I knew I needed to get out and meet new people if I ever wanted to date again, and it seemed like a great first step.
I browsed through everyone's Meetup profile to see if they were the right group for me, and came across Margie's profile (not her real name, of course). My God, she was cute! I'm a sucker for brown eyes, and boy did she have them. And she was also a member of a singles Meetup group! I calmed down, though, and reminded myself that I didn't even know this woman, and I certainly didn't want to start stalking her. I closed my browser and tried to not give it any more thought.
I went to the meeting the next day and made a lot of new friends; we even started organizing movie and games nights so that we could hang out apart from the club. Then Margie showed up late. She looked amazing in her photo, but it had not even begun to do justice to the real thing. It wasn't just looks either . . . the woman had a PhD! I quickly filed her away under waaaaaaaaay out of your league.
We saw each other a lot though: at book club, at movie nights, and at game nights. We'd often be involved in the same group conversations, and it turned out that we liked the same drinks.
Then, one I night, something strange happened. Every time I moved to a different spot, she would come sit next to me. She even asked someone on the couch to scoot over and make room so that she could sit by me. Something clicked. I hadn't even thought she would ever consider me, so I hadn't considered her. Because of that, I was confident around her, I gave her plenty of space, I didn't come on too strong . . . hell, I didn't come on at all. I had inadvertently followed all of the "how to get girls" advice I had ever been given, and it looked like it was working.
So I asked her out, and she said yes. I was so nervous that I left before we even made any concrete plans.
When she called later to cancel our first date because she was feeling sick, I offered to bring her some soup. I still remember sitting in her apartment with two bowls of potato soup--snot dripping down her nose as she sat there in her dirty PJs--and me thinking to myself, I'm the luckiest goddamn guy in the world. When she got better, we went out to dinner and a movie, but we still call that night in her apartment our first date. We've been together over a year now, and things have only gotten better.
Last night we went out to a bar with some friends. Even while wearing a baggy hoodie and baggier jeans, she turned heads away from the 21 year old blondes in their low shirts and high skirts. And she came and sat down next to me . . . ME, I mean, crap, I still play Dungeons and Dragons!
And to top it all off, she says that she's the one that should feel lucky.
