A Modest Proposal, Part 3: The Dark Ages

In our last episode, Jill had just left my apartment to catch her train back to DC, and after she was gone, I decided that it was time to stop waiting for chance to bring her back to NYC. I wanted to see her regularly, really begin dating, and so I plotted how to make that happen.

I started by looking up flower stores in DC, and that afternoon I ordered flowers delivered to her office for Tuesday, along with a note thanking her for coming to the dinner party and saying how much I'd enjoyed seeing her. Can't go wrong sending flowers, I figured.

Two things happened on Tuesday.. First, I got an email from Jill thanking me for the flowers and telling me how surprised she'd been to receive them, how pretty they looked, and how much inquisitive attention they were generating from her co-workers. The second thing that happened is that I came home to find that a package had come from Crate & Barrel. When I opened it, I saw that it was from Jill, and that she had sent me... [an egg separator]. Until that moment, I'd completely forgotten our little exchange about egg separating, probably owing to the fact that I had been at least 40-50 sheets to the wind at the time it took place, but the moment I saw the egg separator, it suddenly all came back. (See part 2 for a recap). It came with an impish note from Jill, and I laughed and laughed.

In that moment, I remember thinking: "If we have just one more date, I think we'll end up married to each other." Since Jill had thus far done all the traveling, I decided to offer to come down to DC, with a secret agenda of asking to see Jill on a more regular basis. And to test that theory, about one more date.

And that's when the Dark Ages began.

In retrospect, I think they actually began before the dinner party; Jill had a certain... distance to her that night and the next day that I hadn't felt before. But we'd still had a great time together and so I'd overlooked that. But when followed over the next almost-a-month was a strange dance of trying to find a time to connect via the phone, having a hard time doing that, agreeing on a time only to have it fall through at the last minute, etc. It was hard not to come to the conclusion that what was happening was the soft landing, the no-without-saying-no to a question (are you really interested in me?) that I hadn't even had the chance to ask yet. But I had never felt so strongly so early for a woman before, and I didn't want to just let it fizzle, so I hung in there and we did eventually speak.

In that conversation, Jill told me that she'd been offered the job in Mayor Bloomberg's office, but that she'd turned it down. She said she had too much going on at her current job to leave it now, and also that it didn't work in her personal life to make that kind of life change at this moment. Although privately disappointed, I expressed support for her decision and then made my pitch to come and see Jill in DC.

After some negotiation, Jill said she could do it in early December, on a weekend when it also happened that her best friend Chris was going to be in town, so as long as I didn't mind that Chris would be there too, I was welcome to come. Now, that seemed pretty suspiciously like the weekend one would pick if one wanted a buffer there, but under the half-a-loaf-is-better-than-no-loaf philosophy, I accepted.

Thus, a few weeks later I found myself on a plane to DC. I figured we would go out that night with Chris and some other friends, but that eventually I would have at least a few minutes alone, so I'd rehearsed a little speech in my head and was ready to go.

We had dinner that night with Chris, and then went out for drinks later with Jill's friend [Alison]. We had a very nice time- I enjoyed getting to know Chris better and I also enjoyed meeting Alison. Finally, we returned home and all went to bed, and at last I was alone with Jill. And so, I mustered up all my courage, and started The Conversation.

Gus: "So, I just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed the time we've spent together in New York, and I wanted to come down here to tell you that, and to say that I'd really like to see more of you, and I'm wondering how you feel about that."

(pause)

Jill: "Thanks."

(pause)

During that pause, which lasted probably a second in real time, but approximately 3 years in subjective time, the following images all crashed into my head at once (not making this up- I've always remembered this moment *very* vividly):

... the bases are loaded in sold-out Busch stadium. The fans are on their feet... it's the bottom of the 9th, down by a run, the bases are loaded, and Gus is at the plate with a full count. There is an announcer:

Announcer: "Here's the pitch... SWING, and a MISS! That's the ballgame!"

silence in the stands as Gus stands dejectedly at the plate...

... World War II... a B-22 bomber has just taken a hit and is streaming smoke and flame as it begins to plunge toward an anonymous death in the middle of the Pacific. Through the window of the cockpit we can see pilot Gus as he engages in a futile attempt to pull up...

... that scene from Pearl Harbor where the Arizona is slowly sinking, and those sailors are all trapped inside, and you can see their fingers sticking out of the grating as the water starts pouring in and the ship slips below the surface...


Then the pause ended, and Jill went on to explain that she was going to be extremely busy at work until her big event she had to plan (4 months away), and she tended to disappear on people, and that she sometimes used work to keep distance from people, and that "It's not you, it's me."

At that point, I almost laughed- I remember thinking "Oh my god, I'm in dating cliche hell: too busy at work, you know, for like, *ever*, it's-not-you-it's-me, oh god, please let this stop."

Finally, we just settled into an awkward silence, and I think she eventually fell asleep. As for me, I just lay there. All I could do was lay there thinking: I am so stupid. I mean, colossally, stupefyingly stupid. How could I have thought this would end any other way? The signs were all there. But no, I just had to come down here and humiliate myself, like a moth that gets really close to the flame, all the while thinking, "Gee, it sure is getting awfully hot. That can't be a good sign. But whatever, I just have to touch that light... I just have to... I just ha-" (death)

I did not sleep a wink the entire night. It seemed like the longest night of my life. When the sun finally started coming up and there was enough light in the room to read, that's what I did. Eventually, Jill woke up and said we ought to get out of bed and join Chris, and as she moved to do so, I reached out and touched her arm very lightly.

There are 2 things I'll always remember about that moment: first, the almost electric feeling of that tough, and second, the look that Jill gave me when I did it. It was a look with a lot of layers to it- I read in it that it had been as physically electric for her as it had been for me, that it had touched her emotionally, and that it scared her. Now, that's a lot to read into one brief moment, and by no means was I feeling particularly confident at that point about my ability to read Jill, but as I write this, I've had the benefit of some months for Jill and I to relive all those old moments, and tell each other what we each were thinking at the time. And it turns out I had that look mostly right.

But at the time I didn't know that, and the moment passed, so we went out to join Chris. I was just running out the clock, waiting until 10 for the cab to come and get me and take me back to NYC. I put on the happy face as much as I could until it was finally time to go. Jill walked me out, and I remember her standing there on the street watching me go as the cab pulled away. She looked as beautiful and inscrutable as ever.

As for me, I slumped down in my seat and began the odious process of Updating People. I had shared with a few people my grand intentions in going down there, and of course they all wanted to know how it had gone. I tried, not particularly successfully I'd imagine, not to let show how humiliated I felt, but I got through it and got home.

For the next few weeks, I listlessly went through my lessons and tried to focus on putting it all behind me. Around Christmastime, I went on a date and took her for a walk around the southern tip of Manhattan. It was a beautiful night, and New York City is at its most romantic (in my opinion) around Christmastime. But what I discovered as we went on this very romantic walk was that I could think only of Jill, and how much I'd like to take her on this walk.

When I got home, I decided that since I still couldn't get her out of my mind, I'd try to see if I could get a conversation going again with her. I was still confused about what had actually happened, especially given that she'd never actually said something like "I'm not interested in you," or "I only think of you as a friend" etc, etc. So I bought her a pair of wine glasses (since she'd complained once about having to drink wine out of paper cups at her apartment) under the guise of its being the holidays, and mailed them to her with a letter.

The letter worked, in the sense that we did end up having a conversation about it. We had a long phone call one night in early January, and in it, Jill for the first time shared some things about her past, and why it was hard for her to respond to what I was trying to offer her. The upshot of the conversation was: "It's not that I'm not interested, but I'm not in a place in my life where I can accept what you're offering me."

Me being me, I chose to focus a lot more on the "It's not that I'm not interested" part, and a lot less on the "I'm not in a place in my life where I can accept what you're offering me" part.

Though I hoped that that conversation would be the first of many conversations about what was going on in our lives, and how we might move closer together, it turned out to be the first of exactly one conversation. We slipped back into only the occasional email, and then in mid January I was offered the position of Director in the company, with the chance to move back to California and have the Bay Area territory. It was a tremendous opportunity, but I said I needed a little time to think about it.

Now, I knew that Jill loved California, and would more than likely be open to moving back there at some point, and so before I made a final decision, I thought I would try one more time to see if there was any chance that Jill and I might date.

Shortly thereafter, a chance to do that presented itself when Jonathan invited me down to DC for a concert. I contacted Jill and told her I would be in town, and asked if she wanted to get together for coffee or something. She met me at the metro station by her house, and we went for a long walk with her dog Jukebox, and then went back to her apartment. We talked for a long time, but I couldn't seem to steer the conversation to anything significant. Jill was a professional lobbyist on Capitol Hill, so I suppose I was overmatched in terms of trying to control a conversation, but I could tell she was keeping me at arm's length, and deliberately preventing the conversation from getting too close to anything like what we'd discussed on the phone, or even when I'd come down the last time.

In the end, I left without having talked about any of the things I'd hoped to. I had been searching for any reason to hope we might get together, and Jill was careful not to give me any. If she had, I would have gone back to NYC and said that I couldn't accept the Directorship for another 1-2 years; I was willing to do the bulk of the travel to DC to see Jill, and I was even willing to eventually transition to working half the time out of the DC office, until such a time as Jill was ready to move to CA. No one else was interested in either SF or San Diego, so I figured there would still be opportunities for a directorship in CA.

I never mentioned any of that stuff to Jill at the time; these are among the things that we have revealed to each other only as we have dated over the last 8 months. In any case, I went back to NYC and accepted the directorship in SF, and began making plans to move that summer.

Back in NYC, again moping my way through my lessons, I eventually decided to have a dinner party, and summon some of my close friends to tell them the story, and see what they had to say about it. So, over President's Day weekend, my sister, Dan, Shara, Joel, Ed, Jonathan, Jeffrey, and a few others gathered for a working dinner. I told the whole story, and then posed the question: "What do I do? Do I just write her off completely? Or do I continue to try and pursue her in some fashion, and if so, how?" Then I went in the kitchen and cooked for a while, while the group discussed the situation.

Even though I was in a different room, I could tell that the discussion was quite a spirited one. When I put dinner on the table, and we started eating, we went around the table and each person gave their recommendation. Interestingly, the entire range of possibilities was represented; there wasn't anything even close to a consensus. But it was great fun to listen to all the different perspectives, and by the time we were done, and had moved on to board games (which eventually saw my sister punching Ed in a fit of competitive frustration, which I think turned him on), I had made up my mind. I opted for a course different from any I'd heard, but which nevertheless was inspired by the discussion overall.

Over the next 10 weeks, I commenced a campaign based on the premise that the primary thing that was holding Jill and I back from dating each other was actually not a fundamental lack of feeling for me, but rather that she was scared of taking the chance on the relationship, only to have it not work out and end up getting hurt. Now, while I'd been pretty clear that I was interested, I had not really communicated the full extent of my interest in Jill. I'd kept that part somewhat close to the vest, wanting first to see how she would respond. But now, I thought, it's time for the Hail Mary pass. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that.

I knew that in 11 weeks I would see Jill at Chris's wedding, where she was to be Maid of Honor. So, I wrote a series of 5 letters in which I told the story of meeting her and going on the dates that we'd gone on, and how emotionally significant it all was to me. But, figuring that it would be hard to read that directly, I wrote the letters as a fairy tale in 5 parts, about a knight and a lady. I also made 5 mix CD's that functioned as a soundtrack to the 5 letters. I alternated between them, sending 1 letter or CD each week, which took us until the week before Chris's wedding.

I hoped that the letters would spark more dialogue between us, but I didn't hear from Jill until after I'd sent the last CD. She sent a letter, which arrived just a couple days before I left for LA for the wedding. It was, in many ways, a beautiful letter, which spoke back to me in the kind of language that I had used in my letters to her. But, it didn't say any of the things that I'd hoped it would. It prompted me to write [a letter back in response], but because I'd promised in my 5th letter that I would stop already with the letters and CDs, etc., and that I would stop pursuing her unless she gave me a clear signal to do otherwise, I instead FedEx'd it to myself, and put it away, thinking that if we ever did get together, I would surprise her with it as a gift.

So I went to Chris's wedding expecting that it would probably be the last time I ever saw her, and trying to take some comfort in the idea that I'd really tried, really given it my very best shot.

The wedding, it turns out, was a very dramatic affair. It was great to see Chris and John married, and the service was great. But Jill was not in a good place, and at one point just before the service, she walked up to me and said:

"I hate weddings. Promise me that when you get married, you won't ask me to be in your wedding."

And then she looked at me expectantly.

I thought about it for a second, and then I said:

"I'm sorry Jill, but I can't promise you that."

That turns out to have been one of my more prescient moments in life.

At the reception, Jill delivered her maid-of-honor speech, which is outside the scope of this blog, but which is legendary in its own right. It was a pretty spectacular public self-immolation, and the echoes of it still ring down through the ages. Afterward, Jill largely disappeared (insofar as I could tell), and I took refuge on the dance floor, where I could forget about all that had transpired. I didn't see her again until almost the end of the last song. I'd hoped to get one dance with her, but it seemed it was not meant to be.

And then, the DJ put on one more song, to play while he packed up. It was: Don't Stop Believin.

There's so much we don't understand about how the universe works, and I've often marveled at how *that* particular song was the one the DJ chose to play. We danced together, essentially alone, since everyone else was filing out of the reception hall, and we sang along to the song. It was... fun. And I wanted to say that if she would just say the word, it could be like that all the time, but I'd promised to give her space that night, and so I kept quiet.

There was a long after party that night, and I had a good time. Jill and I didn't really speak to each other, but I did look over her way a lot, and it sure seemed like she was looking over at me a lot. But eventually the party wound down, and with a perfunctory hug goodbye, I went back to my room, fully expecting never to see or possibly even hear from her again.

The next morning, I laid in my bed in the hotel room and tossed and turned. Finally, in an effort to get everything that was in my head out of my head, I wrote [another letter to Jill], which I also ended up FedEx-ing to myself, rather than actually sending to her. When I got back to NYC, I threw it in the closet with the other one.

In the meantime, I drove up to JOC's house that day, and he and I had a long conversation about all that had happened. I was on my way to the Bay Area to scout places to live, and a place to put the office. Since JOC's house was halfway to the Bay Area, I spent the night there. He was very supportive, and since he'd known Jill pretty well for several years, he was able to help me make some sense out of everything.

That night, around 3am, my phone went off. I'd gotten a text. I rolled over and picked it up, expecting it to be Kiddo or one of my other students. Instead, it was from Jill. Although the text was itself innocuous, I had the sense that it was a trial balloon kind of text, as if to see if I would respond at all. And I laid there for a couple of minutes trying to figure out if I wanted to respond, given all that had happened.

In the end, I figured that Jill needed more people in her life who would support her. And I thought that if I couldn't date her, well, at least I could provide her steady friendship and support. The truth was, I still loved her enough that that was better than nothing. So I did respond. She was in the airport in Atlanta on her way back to DC.

When I finally arrived in the Bay Area the next day, I did a lot of looking at office spaces, and even interviewed with the guy at Google who controls all their real estate and office space (thanks to L, who set that up). By the middle of the afternoon, I was sure I'd put a stake down in Palo Alto, and so I turned my thoughts to where I'd want to live.

Since I'd spent the last couple years living literally across 2nd avenue from the office, my first thought was that I'd do something similar, and try to find an apartment as close as possible to the office. But then I remembered Half Moon Bay, which I'd driven through in college with Joel and Z-man, and so I decided to take a drive to the beach.

When I got there, HMB was showing her very best self. It was sunny and 72 degrees, and I went for a walk down on the sand. I sat down, and texted Jill that I was sitting on the beach in HMB. She responded with something "omg, that's my mom's favorite place in the whole world! What are you doing THERE?"

At that point, I'd been on the fence about whether I should live close to the office, or maybe look for a place near the beach. But when I got Jill's text, it tipped me. I decided that when I moved out to CA, I'd look and see if I could find a place in HMB. So, in a very real way I ended up in HMB because of Jill, and so it's only fitting that we are getting married there next year.

The next day, I went back to NYC. I was very sad, but I knew it was time to put it all behind me and move on. And that's what I did. A couple months later I met Keiko, fell in love again, and over time, healed. Along the way, Jill and I would email perhaps once a month, and let each other know what was going on in our lives, so we stayed in touch. I watched as she moved away from DC, which was a toxic environment for her, got control of her life, and moved on in her own way. 2 years passed like that.

Then Keiko and I broke up. It was a very hard breakup, and I was miserable for about 4 months. Somewhere in that time, Jill invited me to go meet her and Alison in Belize over New Year's. Needing to do something fun, and figuring enough time had passed that we could see each other in a healthy way, I agreed.

And then everything changed.

A Modest Proposal, Part 2: The Backstory (continued)

The end of Part 1 saw me flying back home to NYC on 8/27/06, wondering if in fact I had just met the girl I would marry, and also wondering if she in any way remotely felt anything like what I did.

My first thought upon landing was: "How long do I wait before I call her?" Waiting too long would convey a lack of serious interest, and I didn't want that. Calling too soon would convey desperation/lameness/crazy-stalker-guy, and I didn't want that either. After much rumination, I settled on 2 days as the right balance.

So, on Tuesday evening I called Jill. I had no idea if we would have anything to talk about, and I was nervous as heck, but it felt immediately comfortable talking to her, and we had a nice, somewhat lengthy conversation. She mentioned that she was applying for a job in Mayor Bloomberg's office, and that as a result she would probably be heading up to NYC in the near future for interviews.

That first conversation led to a couple more phone conversations over the next couple weeks, until finally Jill had a date she was going to be in the city for interviews. We agreed to meet for lunch on the Upper East Side, and agreed that we would meet at my apartment (which was right across the street from my office).

We met at my apartment because I wanted to start us off with a nice view of the city; I was lucky enough to have scored a penthouse 1 BR that had a balcony with a view of the Chrysler building. It also had that rarest of rarities in a NYC apartment: it was the size of a normal one-bedroom apartment, like you might find in any average American city. In NYC, that made it enormous.

So we met at my apartment building and took in the view, and then I took us to a French bistro near Central Park, where we had a delicious lunch. From there, we went for a walk around the reservoir in Central Park. It was a beautiful day, and I was struck again by how comfortable and easy it was to be with Jill. I had worried that it feel a little awkward or forced, getting together for the first time a few weeks after the wedding, but in fact it felt completely natural.

So, when we made it to the West side of the park, it was time for her (and me) to go, so I hailed a cab for her, and away she went. As for me, I was already 15 minutes late to my next student (Alix), but I knew she'd forgive me if I told her the reason, since she knew how much I'd been looking forward to this date.

Apparently the interview had gone well for Jill, because just a couple of phone conversations later, she told me she'd be up in NYC interviewing again, on a Friday morning, and this time was planning to make a weekend out of it, so did I want to get together? Naturally, I did.

I planned to take Jill to Asia de Cuba (highly recommended) for dinner, and then walk a couple of blocks to the Library Bar, which is a fun rooftop bar with a view of, wait for it... the NY Public Library. It's an intimate place, and we had just had our summer holiday party at work there, so I knew the place well.

When that Friday arrived, I told my last student of the evening, Jordan, a senior at a high school in northern NJ, that we would be having a truncated lesson this time, and that I would make up the time when we met next week..

Me: "Okay dude, at precisely 715pm, even if I'm in the middle of a sentence, I am out that door right there, 'k? Because I've got to get down to Plaza Flowers and get some flowers to take with me for when I show up at Jill's hotel."

Jordan: "Hahaha... you're going to bring her flowers? Is that how old people like you date?"

(pause)

Me: "Okay, Mr. Casanova, why don't you give me some dating advice. Who's your Primary Love Interest right now?"

Jordan: "Oh, she's this girl who works in the music store in the mall by my house. OMG, she is so hot."

Me: "Okay, so have you asked her out yet?"

Jordan: "Well, uh, no... not exactly."

Me: "So then what's your strategy for asking her out, Mr. Big Talker?"

Jordan: "Well... last time I was there I bought piano music."

Me: "You bought piano music."

Jordan: "Yes."

Me: "Wait.. do you *play* the piano?"

Jordan (shifts uncomfortably in his seat): "Uh, well, ... no."

Me: "Niiiiiiiiiiice. So what is this hot girl's name?"

Jordan: "Uh, I don't know."

Me: "What do you mean, you don't know? You bought the piano music from her and didn't ask her name?"

Jordan: "Well, that's the thing. I walked up to her counter to talk to her, and... and... then I panicked. I couldn't think of anything to say. But she was standing in front of a shelf full of piano music, so... I bought some. Actually, I bought a bunch of it."

Me: "Exactly how much piano music did you buy?"

Jordan: "I don't know... maybe $50 worth."

Me: "You bought FIFTY DOLLARS worth of piano music???"

Jordan (sinking slowly into his seat): "Yes." [in a tiny voice] "Three times."

Me: "You did that THREE TIMES??"

Jordan: "WELL NOT IN THE *SAME* *DAY*!!"

Me: "OH... OH... well, that's MUCH less pathetic then. So, to recap where we are, I'm going to take my old-man self and my old-man flowers down to the hotel room of the hot girl *I'm* interested in, whose name I know, and then I'm going to take her out for a nice dinner and drinks, and then at the end of the evening I'm going to ask her out again, while meanwhile you are going to be spending $50 a week buying music for an instrument you don't even play, until the day finally comes when your nutsack descends enough to ask the girl you're buying the music from what her name is. Is that where we are?"

Jordan: "Uh.."

Me: "Okay, you do NOT get to criticize my dating strategy ever again. Are we clear?"

Jordan (tiny voice): "Yes."

Me: "Awesome."

So, as promised, I bolted the room at precisely 715pm, with Jordan wishing me luck, and I headed down to Plaza Flowers to pick up a very small bouquet to take to Jill. I gave her the flowers when I arrived (Jill: "Wow, you brought me *flowers*?" Me: "I know it's how old people date, but there's a story here..."), and then we headed to dinner.

Dinner at Asia de Cuba was amazing. We had the strongest (and most expensive) mojitos ever while we waited for our table, and then we had a huge dinner that couldn't be beat, while putting away an entire bottle of really nice wine. Thus, by the time we left, we were roaring drunk, and getting up the Library Bar for more drinks was clearly not happening. Instead, I walked Jill back to her hotel.

At this point, I will gracefully fast-forward to the next day, riding in a cab downtown to teach my pro bono SAT class, when I thought back on the evening, and how amazing it had been. Not that any one thing in particular had been amazing, but as always, spending time with Jill just seemed... right... somehow. It was tremendously exciting, and I thought that there was really just one more thing I wanted to know before attempting to get really serious about this, which was: how would Jill mesh with my friends? The answer to that: throw a dinner party and see.

Jill and I had talked about cooking, and I had mentioned liking to throw dinner parties, but I think she thought I exaggerated the size/scope of them. Unfortunately, it was going to be nearly a month until she could make it up to the city, but I took that in stride and set the date she chose, which was in mid October.

When the day of the dinner party arrived, Jill texted me to say she was willing to come early to help. I had learned from throwing these types of parties that it's best to have a sous chef, and Ed was my sous chef of the day. But I told her if she wanted to help, Ed would probably need all the help he could get chopping vegetables.

When Jill arrived, she set her stuff down and we chatted for a few minutes. As she walked by my bookshelf, she noticed some of my science fiction books, and said "Oh, you like science fiction? I should borrow some of your books."

I was stunned.

I mean, I love science fiction, unabashedly so. But, I had never met a *woman* who liked science fiction. I mean, not one I was actually attracted to. I had actually, right up until that moment, never even considered the possibility of dating someone who shared that particular interest. I was barely able to stop myself from making the joke: "You like science fiction?? OMG, will you marry me right now?"

But, I didn't make that joke. At 18, that's a kinda funny joke. At 36, making that joke to a 35 year old woman, that joke has a much higher probability of going horribly awry.

Anyway, Ed arrived soon afterward, and I put them to work chopping vegetables. They seemed to get along just fine, which I was glad to see, but I was mostly busy in the kitchen.

At one point, I was working on the dessert, and was separating eggs, when Jill came into the kitchen to see how I was doing. At that point, I was separating eggs the old-fashioned way, going back and forth between egg shells. Jill seemed fascinated by it...

Jill: "You know they have a tool for that, right?"

Me: "There's a tool for *separating eggs*?"

Jill: "Yeah. It's called an egg separator. You just pour the egg into it, and the whites slip out the bottom and leave the yolk behind. You should get one."

Me: "Wow. That could be... totally life changing."

Jill: "Smartass."

I'd invited a bunch of my NYC friends, and we had a very grand dinner indeed. Naturally, I started late, probably around 9pm, and consequently we went until around 230 in the morning, at which point everyone was stuffed and wasted. I remember most of the guests were getting ready to go, while meanwhile Socci was camping out on the sofa looking like he was going to settle in and keep drinking wine. Jill was in the bathroom, and I remember pulling Ed aside:

Me: "Uh, dude, what I need you to do right now is get Socci the hell out of here. You know what I'm saying?"

Ed: "Right... got it. I'm on it."

With that, Ed half cajoled, half dragged Socci out, while also shooing everyone else out, so that Jill and I could get some alone time.

Gracefully fast-forwarding us to the next day, I noticed that Jill had a certain... distance to her. Intermittently. In some moments it seemed like she wanted to get close, and in other moments it seemed like she wanted to pull away. It was hard to read, especially given that we were clearly both recovering from the effects of the night before. And anyway, all I could really think about was that we'd had 3 really great dates, and it was time to think about what the next step should be.

In time, Jill had to leave to catch her train back to DC, and after she was gone, I began to plot the next step. Which I'll tell you about, in Part 3: The Dark Ages.

A Modest Proposal, Part 1: The Backstory

I got engaged last Thursday, 8/26/10. There's a story there, but before I can tell it, you need certain background details. Important details that you might wish to hang onto for later will be bracketed as such: [important detail]

The story begins, really begins, at a wedding.

On August 26th, 2006, I flew from NYC to LA, for JOC's wedding. I was a groomsman, and I was looking forward to seeing him. I was pleased that he had finally found a nice, sane girl to marry, and so I was excited about being there to show my support.

I was also kind of excited because this was the first wedding I was attending as a single guy since a wedding my parents made me attend in India when I was 7. Still, JOC warned me on the phone early that week that the population of single women attending the event would probably be fairly small, and to manage my expectations accordingly. Which, I assured him, was totally fine- after all, the point of being there was to show my support for his marriage to V.

So, I arrived in LA not expecting to meet anyone. After checking in to my hotel [The Sportsmen's Lodge] and running errands that morning/early afternoon with JOC, I decided to head down to [the pool] around 2pm and go for a swim.

Not expecting that I would be meeting anyone, I made no effort to, you know, pretty myself up in any way, after a cross-country flight + running errands in the heat. When I got to the pool, I discovered that Grossman's fiancee Chris (note: Grossman was JOC's best friend from HS and was another groomsman) had gone to the airport to pick up her best friend, and the two of them were now laying out at the pool, surrounded by a swarm of admiring men.

That best friend was Jill.

I remember the instant I saw her. I remember thinking "Wait- who is THAT? JOC said there were not likely to be many single women, let alone any HOT single women." (not that I actually knew she was single at that point- I'm just relating the thoughts that went through my head). So I made a point of briefly introducing myself, and then coolly going for the pool. I say "coolly" because, as I noted before, there were already several admiring guys trying to make small talk, and I didn't want to seem too eager to join them.

After swimming some laps, in as coolly detached a manner as possible, I finally got out of the pool and joined the throng of admirers. Over the next hour or so I joined in the small talk as best I could, but then it was time for all of us to go get ready, so that we could do a rehearsal and help set up.

Thus, around 5pm, I found myself at The Bistro Garden, a few blocks down the street from the Lodge, and while we were waiting for everyone to get ready to do the rehearsal, I saw Jill sitting by herself on a chair at the edge of what would eventually be the dance floor. Having watched enough nature documentaries to know that your odds are better if you can separate the prey from the herd, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and go over to talk to her.

As I said hello, I remember that Jill tilted her head and looked up at me, and this was the moment that I first looked into her eyes (she had been wearing sunglasses at the pool). I am a firm believer that you can tell a lot about a person by what you see when you look in their eyes, and what you see when you watch them move. It's easy to hide the truth with words, but it's hard to hide with your eyes, or with your body. What I saw when I looked into Jill's eyes were tenderness, intelligence, complexity, and... something else I can't exactly put a name to but which I was deeply attracted to.

I don't remember anymore exactly what it was we discussed then, but I think it had to do with traveling, which it turned out we both loved to do, and then it was time for me to go rehearse. From that point on, I didn't get much of a chance to talk to Jill; I was a groomsman, so I was busy all the way until we sat for dinner, and Jill was at the next table. From time to time I tried to surreptitiously glance over at her, and several times when I did, I saw she was looking at me. Now, I'm not real good at this kind of thing, so I was left to wonder if this was a sign that she was at all interested, or if she was just amusing herself and passing the time by watching to see how long I would go before the next time I would crack and have to look her way. She was very attractive, and carried herself with a kind of brash confidence, so I was definitely unsure which of the two options it was.

Finally, dinner ended and the dancing started. Given all my experience with dancing, I've always viewed the dance floor as home court advantage for me. So, I hatched the following plan: I was seated at a table that did have a couple other single friends of JOC's, so I first made a move to dance once with each of them, thereby establishing myself as skilled on the dance floor. By the time I had done that, I noticed that Jill was standing on the edge of the dance floor watching, so when I walked the last person back to the table, I went up to Jill and asked her to dance. Fortunately, she said yes.

From that point on, I didn't dance with anyone else the rest of the evening. It was a great wedding, and we danced for hours. After a while, I did have to give Jill a break, and we got drinks and went outside for fresh air. Outside, for no reason I can remember, we ended up talking about art. Jill was telling me about impressionist painting techniques, and although I had absolutely nothing useful to add (indeed, that one conversation probably doubled my total knowledge base about painting), I enjoyed learning from her. I was totally hooked.

After quite a bit more dancing, we headed back to the Lodge for the after party. I remember as we were crossing Coldwater Canyon road, Jill reached out for my hand. It was like being 12 again, when Linda Burrow held my hand on the bus one day and I couldn't think about anything else for like a week.

The after party was nice, and now, this being a public blog, I will simply gracefully fast forward us to The Next Morning.

The next morning, I saw Jill at brunch. I was a little nervous; had last night been as significant for Jill as it had been for me? I had no idea. She looked fantastic, and we sat next to each other at brunch and again started talking. She had to leave to go to a baby shower, but before she left, she gave me her number and said, "I hope I'll hear from you."

Later that afternoon, I had to get on a plane and head back to NYC. JOC and Grossman were, of course, giddy for details, none of which I was willing to supply. But I knew something had happened that changed everything, and as the plane was taking off that afternoon, I remember quite clearly thinking: "Is it possible I have just met the woman I will one day marry?"

That was a deeply terrifying thought, for a number of reasons. First, I had never had that thought that clearly before. Second, I had no idea if Jill felt anything remotely like that. And third, I didn't know Jill at all, really. It was a weird mixture of exciting and terrifying to think about that, which is what I did for the entire 6 hour flight back to NYC.

And so ended phase 1 of Gus and Jill 1.0. Stay tuned for the story of phase 2...