How They Met. David Friedman
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out and helping Penny at her home. Rene began to notice that she felt really comfortable with Peter, although she wasn’t feeling any romantic feelings. But as time went on and they began to spend more time together, feelings started to grow between them. It was a long, complex courtship, both were recovering from a lot of pain and trauma, but they took their time, often not being in contact for months as they each took care of their personal business in their own cities, going as slowly as they needed to with each other. After about nine months, a love that was stronger than either of them had ever experienced blossomed and they are now married.
Michael was the extremely successful owner of a very large company. Lisa worked running one of the departments. They hardly knew each other. One day, Michael was giving someone a tour of the company facilities and when they got to Lisa’s department, the man who was receiving the tour said, “Is she your wife?” That was a really strange thing to say out of the blue, but Michael found himself saying, “No, but I wish she was.”
Now Michael had recently been through a very painful divorce and he says that Lisa looked like a much younger version of his ex-wife, although considering how rancorous that divorce had been, it’s surprising that he would have had feelings for anyone who looked like her. Perhaps Lisa was his “type.” At any rate, one thing led to another and they began to go out.
But as they got more serious, Michael’s distrust and his memory of past failed relationships made him reluctant to want to commit. Michael was a good deal older than Lisa and felt they wanted different things. Lisa was pressuring him for more commitment. Finally, Lisa gave him an ultimatum, and when he didn’t rise to it, Lisa left.
For the next period of time, they were apart and Michael began to date other women. Being a very wealthy man, he would drive up in an antique Bentley, pick up his date, drive to the airport where they would board his private Gulfstream jet, fly over to Martha’s Vineyard or some such place for dinner, and fly back. As Michael tells it, by the second date many women would be falling in love with him, telling him how sexy he was and how anxious they were to make a commitment. Michael was astute enough to realize that these women were not falling in love with him but rather with the material things he was providing.
During this time, Lisa had worked very hard to get over Michael. She went through months of tears and pain and finally felt she had let go and was ready to move on. Then, one day, after nine months of separation, the phone rang and it was Michael. She couldn’t imagine why he was calling. Michael told her that, after months of empty dating, he had realized that Lisa was the one who had loved him for himself and not for his money and that he was now willing to make the commitment and marry her. They’ve been together ever since.
In a Bar
I met two people in a restaurant the other day. She’s forty, he’s sixty, they’ve been married less than a year, and amazingly enough, it’s a first marriage for both. They happily own a restaurant in Nantucket together, as well as having two careers in New York. Since I collect stories about how people met, I asked her to tell me theirs. “How did you meet?” I asked. “In a bar,” was her reply.
Sometimes it’s just that simple.
A Pickup
On September 22, 1990, Russell went out to a bar in Wilmington, North Carolina, met Anthony, brought him home, and they’ve been together ever since. They were legally married on September 5, 2013 in Potomac, MD.
He Went to That Party He Didn’t Want to Go To
Burgess had had a horrible breakup with his former boyfriend, when he discovered that he was having an affair with the husband of a woman friend of theirs. After that, Burgess didn’t date for almost five years, and was just starting to date casually when he was invited to a New Year’s Eve party. He didn’t particularly want to go, but at 10 p.m. got himself dressed and went. Dan had been invited to the same party. Also being single and, like Burgess, casually dating someone, Dan hadn’t really felt like going either, but decided that he would go, help the host, and leave early. The moment Burgess walked in, Dan says that he saw him across the room and remembers thinking, “This is a man I’d want to settle in and spend the rest of my life with.” Burgess remembers also spotting Dan across the room and thinking him attractive, but not really being interested since Dan was not young, hot, dark, and Cuban, the type Burgess was usually attracted to. However, they did get to talking and didn’t stop the whole evening. After the party they went out to a coffee shop and continued to talk until three in the morning. They talked about the guys they’d begun to date, about their problems, and about life, with no discussion of their dating or anything like that, but just as new friends.
Over the course of the next six months, they became fast friends. Sporadically, they would spend a lot of time with each other, talking, doing things together, having meals, and in time they grew to be really close friends, still not making the move toward becoming more. Then one day, as Burgess tells it, Dan called him and said, “I’d like to cook for you.” Now Dan is a wonderful cook, so Burgess immediately accepted. They decided they would have a picnic by the sea, and during the course of the meal, as the sun set over the ocean, Burgess noticed that Dan had taken his hand. Dan proceeded to tell him that he couldn’t hold out much longer and that he hadn’t wanted to push or rush him, but he’d been in love with him and extremely attracted to him since the night they’d met. Burgess was taken by surprise and hadn’t really allowed himself to think that way, but he and Dan went back to Dan’s house and made love, and have been together ever since, which is over thirty years now. And Burgess tells me their lovemaking and their closeness are as fresh and new as they were all those years ago.
Ervin Drake, world-renowned songwriter of such hits as “I Believe” and the Broadway musical Golden Boy, was nineteen when he met the love of his life, who was sixteen. At the time, Ervin was a starving songwriter who was having a lot of trouble finding success. The love of his life came from a well-to-do, socially prominent family. Though they were madly in love, she was concerned about settling down with him, so she broke up with him to play the field. Ervin was devastated to the point of contemplating suicide. So devastated in fact, that he wrote the scathing song “Good Morning Heartache,” which became his first big hit.
Ervin and the love of his life each went on to marry other people. Coincidentally, they both ended up living in Great Neck, Long Island. After twenty-five years, Ervin’s wife died. Around the same time, the love of his life’s husband also died. Hearing about Ervin’s wife’s death, she called to console him and they arranged to meet for dinner. Right then and there they realized that they’d always been soulmates. They got married very soon after, and stayed married for the rest of their lives. So her breaking up with Ervin handed him his career, and they ended up together in the end.
Linda, an aspiring young actress just out of college, had been dating a Hollywood celebrity for four years and had thought that this was the man she would be with for the rest of her life. However, as it gradually began to dawn on her that her boyfriend