How MTL Became My True Love (Part II)

A few days ago I wrote about how I met MTL through an online dating site. Our early courtship, to use an ancient term, took us right through Valentine's Day, but didn't involve meeting face to face until our first official date. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of that date. Here's the rest of the story:

After a few days in Boston, I headed back to Michigan. MTL and I talked again on my trip home, and he asked me out on a real date--we agreed on Friday the 19th. That night we met at a Thai restaurant that is now just around the corner from where we live. He was not only on time, he was early. I was also early, but didn't want to come across too eager, so drove in circles until I could go in just a couple minutes after six, which is when we were to meet. Poor guy--he'd been waiting quite a while by then and (as he told me later) was becoming certain I had decided not to come! I walked in, he stood up, and apparently we both had private reactions along the lines of He/She is HOT! He had seen my pictures, but says I am far more gorgeous in real life.

*mushy sigh*

So we sat down to eat and started talking. And talking. And talking. We finally realized how long we'd been there when they started closing up the restaurant four hours later. Neither of us was ready to have the date end, so we headed over to a glow-in-the-dark miniature golf place nearby. He had been hesitant to suggest it, since it's a bit of a geeky thing, but it turns out I'm geeky enough to think it was a great idea. So we went and played mini-golf. I beat him soundly, though it was a bit unfair as he kept getting distracted every time I leaned over to line up my next shot.

*ahem*

I'll admit it: I kept sort of wanting him to pull me into one of the many many dark corners and kiss me soundly--and it turns out he very much wanted to as well--but he didn't push things. We finally finished the evening and hugged before climbing into our respective cars and heading to our respective homes. I didn't want to be a kiss-on-the-first-date kind of girl. But the chemistry? Oh yes. It was there.

It turned out later that we lived all of a mile and a half apart on the same road. We just took two different routes to get there, so we didn't realize we lived that close!

He asked me the very next day if I would go on another date, and I said yes. I had mentioned that there was a good comedy club that did comedic and partially improvised plays, linked with an Italian restaurant. So he called them up and ordered two dinner-and-show tickets for that next Wednesday.

Then on Monday (we had continued chatting and texting and emailing every day) I felt like seeing him again, so I dropped heavy and not very subtle hints about not having any plans that night and there being nothing much worth eating in the house (my boys were on a long trip down to Florida with their dad, so I had about two weeks with no kids during all this time). He picked up on the hints (I would have been worried about his intelligence if he hadn't) and invited me to meet him for dinner at his favorite Mexican restaurant.

We closed out the restaurant that night too. And there was some, um, lingering in the snowy parking lot before we got in our cars to drive home.

The date on Wednesday was excellent. Lots of laughter, lots of talking, and some more lingering in another snowy parking lot. After that I canceled a couple of dates that had been previously scheduled with a couple other men, because I realized that (1) I really wasn't up to dating multiple people at the same time, (2) if I wanted to continue to date MTL, I couldn't date multiple people, and (3) I only wanted to date MTL. I wasn't admitting it to myself, but I already knew that this was likely to become a serious thing.

We went on a couple more dates that weekend, including dinner and a movie on Friday and a full day of bowling and food and another movie on Saturday, and we never looked back.

It was only a matter of time before I finally admitted to myself (long after he'd already figured it out) that I was thoroughly and completely in love with him. Fortunately, he was in love with me too.

He's never been one to rush into things, but he knew before I did that This Was It. I wasn't expecting the love of my life to come along just then, much less through some dating site. But there he was. And who were we to argue, when so many details indicated we'd been brought together by something more than mere chance?

You see, he hadn't used his Yahoo! Personals account in quite a long time. In fact, he had forgotten he even had it. The account was linked with his spam email account, which he only checked every month or so. He happened to check it the day after I sent that icebreaker, and he saw the email notice. He signed in, checked out my profile, liked what he saw, and responded. If he hadn't checked just then, he wouldn't have seen the email because it would have been too far down on the list of "spam".

The reality was that he'd pretty much given up on the dating scene and was starting to think that he was going to be single for the rest of his life, and that was okay with him. He was fine with being alone. He was content.

Until I came along and he realized that I fit into this massive hole he didn't even know was there.

We've been together ever since. We've had a rough patch or two, mostly due to confronting and working through the baggage we brought with us into the relationship, but we work through it and are stronger for it. It's all very sappy and mushy, but I didn't really understand what love means until I met him.

So there's the story.

And if you're sitting there all disappointed because I've left out the more, um, salacious details--MY MOTHER READS THIS, PEOPLES!!!

(You can totally email me directly if you like. *Ahem*)

Happy Anniversary, my love.