Be Careful What You Don't Know You Wish For

“I need a date for a wedding next Saturday.” That was it, one seemingly innocuous sentence that changed my life forever.

I was a 38-year-old spinster who had been burned so many times before that I had sworn off all romantic entanglements. Maybe it was my shockingly red hair or the attitude that matched it. Or perhaps it was the fact that I spent the majority of my adult life (up to that point) spanking people for money. I’m sure it was a myriad of reasons that I was still single, but I didn’t care. I just knew that no single woman of a certain age likes to go to a wedding alone.

I was desperate for someone to go with me, just to avoid the barrage of “when are YOU going to settle down?” comments from the “happily” married guests at the wedding that I had accidentally agreed to go to a few months prior. The panic set in as I went to make a cocktail at 10 am and saw the reminder on my refrigerator. So I did the only thing I could think of and turned to social media for help.

The wedding was for someone I hadn’t seen since high school, and I probably wouldn’t know her if I ran into her on the street. But I had RSVPed with a plus one because she begged me when I was getting home from bartending at 4 am. My best friend from high school immediately replied that she was supposed to go to the same wedding but was stuck in California. I instantly also got charming responses such as “I’m there. I hear that single women put out at weddings,” or “I would totally go on a date with you, but a wedding seems too intimate, and I don’t know this person.” The vultures were out and trying to prey on my desperation. And my platonic (although he would have liked more) usual go-to date for these types of things had up and died on me suddenly three months beforehand. So not only was I single, but also a widow in a weird way. Within minutes, I was regretting my choice to make my problem public. Even if I hadn’t been so bitter about any idea of affairs of the heart beforehand, a wedding full of people I don’t know full of love and joy was the last thing I wanted to do alone. Or at all, to be honest.

But as a woman of my word, I had reluctantly agreed to go. So I was going.

“The girl I’m dating is kind of ghosting me, and I’m off that day,” my friend Johnny piped up in a message. He was that type of friend. We had met over a decade previously and only saw each other on occasion. He was always the first to have a sarcastic comment on one of my posts or lend an ear online when I needed to talk. So we were friendly, but not close friends. He always knew how to make me laugh, so immediately, I was excited about the offer to entertain me at the boat wedding that even the thought of had become my own personal hell. “Unless, of course, you find a better offer,” he typed after a few minutes of my not responding.

“I could not think of a better offer than you, sir,” I flirted in the way we had done for years. I knew that he wasn’t going to creep on me or try to get in my pants over some cliche about single women at weddings. Instead, we were just going to have a good time. Or the best we could at a stranger’s wedding on a boat in the middle of nowhere for four hours. I may or may not have omitted this information when he agreed, so he was not so thrilled when I gave him the details. But he was also a person of his word and showed up to pick me up at 9 am sharp as promised.

We spent the day together, stuck on a boat full of strangers. The only person I even slightly recognized was the woman getting married. To fill the time, Johnny and I sent each other funny texts and played games like telling the other guests that we were a couple that met on a safari,  or while taking swing dancing lessons, or while we both spent some time in the Senate. Essentially, whatever adventure we could think of was the answer to “Wow, what a cute couple; how did you guys meet?” questions that bombarded us on our river voyage.  We were the most interesting people in the room, always with a fascinating story to entertain the crowd. In our element, we laughed away the (would-be) boring day. Together.

After that, we were in regular contact. My heart jumped every time I saw my incoming text from him. When he came to visit me at work, the full-body hug he received was entirely real. We teased each other about past relationships and comforted when one of us had a difficult day. He was just my old friend Johnny, nothing different. Or was it? What was this strange feeling I was having in my stomach? Was it butterflies? Something was feeling in me,I didn’t recognize it. Disturbingly, I was even understanding all of those sappy love songs on the radio. What was going on with me? The confusion (and waiting in hopes of a text from him) kept me awake at night. This was not me, and I didn’t like it. Or at least know how to handle it.

One night, my car broke down on the way to work. Then after a frustrating ten-hour shift, I closed up the bar and got ready to face the walk home at 3 am. And there he was, my knight in shining...car. “I was not anywhere in your area and heard that you needed a ride,” he smirked, leaning confidently against his driver’s side door. That was it. My heart was officially aflutter.

He drove me less than a mile home, and I asked timidly if he would like to come in. He agreed. We watched silly television, and the angst of my day melted away as if it had never existed.

“It’s a good thing we are just friends,” he joked at me while sitting on my bedroom floor, “because I could NEVER date someone whose room is this messy.” To him, it was an off-handed jab, like we had done to each other for years. But to me, it was a stab in my heart. Jovial conversation halted quickly, him saying his goodbyes and me trying to mask the hurt from that comment. After he left, I spent the next few hours second-guessing myself, life, and those strange feelings I had been having. Falling back into old habits, I closed off. Who cares what this guy thinks? I was fine without his judgments.

After a few days of distance, my heart raced uncontrollably, seeing my most recent text from him. Tears welled as I read, “Look, we’ve been having so much fun not dating. Why don’t we try going out on a real date?” Was I still mad at him for his hurtful joke, or did I want to explore this further? Did I really want to date anyone at all?

With the encouragement of some friends and my teenage daughter, I agreed to go out with him in a romantic fashion…maybe. That was it. Within two years of that official date, I was surrounded by hundreds of our closest friends and family. Reciting vows to a man that had at one time been just a friend but became my everything. While walking down the aisle through the herd of forty bridesmaids, twenty ushers, and family that we hadn’t seen in years, all with the goal to make it to that man who had changed my world. It was the party of the century, in honor of something no one had ever expected.

Sometimes the thing you aren’t looking for is exactly what you need. Love can be found in unexpected places. A few simple words online changed both of us for the better. Now we truly know what it feels like to have a partner and, more importantly, someone to share this thing we call life. It may not be because of him that I am alive today, but it is definitely because of the life we share together...that I look forward to tomorrow.

I am writing this on our 10-year anniversary. Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.