While there was something else scheduled to be written about today, some big news in my life happened yesterday. And I had to share it.
I got engaged to the best man I’ve ever met.
Me and Derrick, post proposal.
Those of you long time blog readers know I’ve had my share of dating. (Click here to read some amusing archives about it.)
I have always doubted my judgement because of repeated failed relationships. I seem to have this objective clarity when making other decisions in my life but romantically, not so much.
I knew I needed a specific kind of man. I had a list with about 35 things on it, a list I made in my early 20s after a bad breakup. Everything from minimum college degree to amount of time out of their last relationship had been perfectly calculated by me for my own happiness. Or so I thought.
Ten years after my formula didn’t work, I figured out I had to redo my criteria. These are the three items I decided were the only things that mattered about six months before meeting Derrick:
1) Someone who makes me always want to be better.
2) Someone I can talk with all night.
3) Someone I will never get tired of kissing.
I’ll be honest, half of me thought even these standards were too high. And part of me knew I wasn’t going to commit to anything less.
I met Derrick at a crowded party (I used a really lame pickup line of him). The night we met, he invited me out to dinner with ten of his friends the next day and I said of course. The best date I’ve ever been on. His friends were great and we left the restaurant around 11:30.
I knew he was it. All that worrying I wouldn’t know the right thing when I saw it was for nothing. When Derrick told me he loved me a ridiculously short time after I met him, I agreed. There was nothing else to do.
We’ve had a great almost year of doing new fun things and doing some same old things. His cat and my dog are best friends. He gives me what I need before I ask and somehow, by just being my regular self, that seems to be exactly what he wants. It’s somehow both small and epic.
It was a regular afternoon yesterday and Derrick and I went ice skating on Somes Pond. After a loop around the pond, we stopped near a rock in a cove and he started saying nice things to me, which was totally normal. Then he got down on one knee and I said ‘Is this happening right now?’ I even said yes before the poor guy could finish.
Derrick and I are probably going to get married sometime in 2014. But I hear this engagement thing is a fun time so I’m going to enjoy it. If only because I wasn’t sure this was going to happen for me. Not because I’m particularly hard to deal with or anything but because some measure of all this is luck: running into the right person at the right time. I am lucky, And I will never forget that.
I will also say though that Derrick would have never made it through an online filter or my own ridiculous initial criteria. There is no computer algorithm that would have put me with a finish carpenter and glass blower from Colorado.
So before you say no, friends, give that person your friend wants to set you up with a chance. Because love might not end up being with a guy who meets 30 of your 35 requirements. It might be in a completely unexpected package that is somehow everything you wanted anyway.