If Ever Two Were One, Then Surely We

I have an amazing husband.  (And no, he didn’t bribe me or put me up to this.)  I feel lucky every day, lucky that we found each other and we realized just how well we fit together.  Often, I find myself saying that my husband is one of the most enlightened men that I know-he gets up with Lily during the week if she wakes up before 6 a.m., he always lets me sleep in on the weekends so he can have private time with his little girl, he remembers anniversaries and birthdays and special relationship dates better than I do, he never gets mad about the money I spend or the things that I buy (granted, I’m not a big shopper so I think he gets off pretty easy on that account),  he admits that he has awful taste so he agrees to let me decorate the house and dress him however I want, he adopts my friends as his own friends and he gets mad when they get hurt, and he likes to catch me off guard with surprise gifts that show how well he listens. 

And the thing is…well…I’ve dated.  I was good at dating, too.  But even in retrospect, no one was ever this wonderful.  I’ll explain:

The hubby and I first met on J-Date, the online Jewish dating service.  Previous to meeting him, I went on many J-Dates, but they weren’t the most pleasant experiences.  I was meeting a lot of guys who I had nothing in common with, or who had terrible manners, or who were just plain weird.  I went on so many first dates I could write an entire book with each chapter being a different guy.   I was actually at a point where I wanted to give up on the whole online dating thing and go back to traditional dating: bars, begging friends to set me up, etc…  So, in a last ditch dating frenzy, I expanded what I was looking for and saw my husband’s picture.  He was pretty cute, and his profile said he was new to the city, so I figured a New York outsider might be a good idea (especially since I wasn’t hitting it off with any of New York’s current residents).  I sent him a message and we started chatting-we had a lot in common like football and music and The Simpsons.  He arranged for us to meet.

I am notoriously on time.  And by on time, I mean early.  I operate under the assumption that 10 minutes early means on time, and on time means late.  The hubby is the same way (another commonality).  However, on our first date, I was late.  Very late-almost 30 minutes due to a subway delay.  I left more than enough time for the unpredictability of New York mass transit, but apparently the 1 line did not want me to be on time.  By the time I got down to Christopher Street in the West Village, I was panicking.  I didn’t have his phone number, we hadn’t exchanged them yet, and I didn’t want him to think that I’d stood up him.  Luckily, he was waiting at our agreed upon location, Café Dante, and the lateness provided a good conversation starter.  That’s when I learned that he was also always on time and also, like me, did not drink coffee.  Meeting at a café seemed convenient but neither of us actually partook in the café’s goodies.  He had a Bailey’s and I played with a saucer of ice cream-I don’t really like ice cream.  We just talked.  We had a lot to talk about: I have the same name as his sister, he has the same birthday as my sister, he’s originally from the same town as my mother, we’re obsessed with the same TV shows…we were instant friends.

When I was careening down the street like a mad woman, attempting to make it to the date on time, I was trying to calm myself down.  “Don’t worry, you’re not even going to like this guy.”  I did this before every date so as not to get my hopes up when he turned out to be a tremendous loser.  But my first appraisal of my husband was, “not too bad.”  He was cute and he was dressed appropriately.  I was immediately relieved that I wouldn’t have to teach him to dress.  I was wrong-this was his one nice going out outfit, and I did eventually overhaul his entire wardrobe.  My husband loves this-he hates to shop so he’s very happy to have me do it for him, and once I started coordinating his outfits, he started to get compliments.  Now he can do it all on his own.

We walked around for hours.  My husband’s experiences in New York were sorta limited, so he relied on me as a guide.  We walked up through the village and through Union Square.  We watched the rats and the squirrels chase one another until a security guard kicked us out.  He was just a nice guy who kissed me on one of the benches, spat out a cheesy line, and then laughed at the sheer corniness of what he said.  Honestly, I didn’t know if I liked him, but I had so much fun on the date, I figured that I’d give him a second date to sort out my feelings-to see if I had any.  I was leaving on a school trip to London for a week and I said that I’d call him when I got back.  Actually, he called me, before I left, to tell me he had a great time, but I didn’t know that it was him.  See, my husband has awful handwriting.  I grew up with a left handed doctor for a father, so I know bad handwriting.  My husband’s is so awful that when I entered his number in my phone, I entered the wrong number. I literally could not read what he wrote down.

My mother has this theory.  Well, it’s not really my mother’s theory-it’s the theory of her next door neighbor’s mother (when she was growing up in East Meadow).  When the neighbor’s mom was young, she had a particular philosophy on dating-she had three dates every weekend: a Friday night date, a Saturday night date and a Sunday afternoon date.  She figured that she would continue to date all three gentlemen until one proposed.  Saturday night proposed first and so she married him.  This dating strategy begat a theory: have a Friday night guy for fun, a Sunday afternoon guy for brunch and a Saturday night guy for seriousness.  So, after I met my husband I wasn’t sure about him.  I thought maybe he could be a good Friday night guy.

The hubby is 100% not my type-we’ve talked about this a lot!  I’m not his type either, which is why we were sorta confused about each other at first.  I normally like short, nebbishy guys who are really literary and pretentious, somehow interested in the arts.  My husband is tall and sporty and doesn’t understand three quarters of the references I make.  But, the cool thing….early on in our dating life, when I asked him what he liked about me, he said that “I can learn from you.”  He was really open to new experiences and learning about what I loved.  I, of course, reciprocated: we joined a co-ed recreational soccer league.  I even went to a Jets game with him, and as a die-hard Giants fan, that’s really going the extra mile.  He occasionally takes me to theater and museums-I even negotiated a Woody Allen film.

I called him when I got back from London and we made plans.  He was shocked that I didn’t have jet-lag.  We met for a movie and when I saw him in front of the theater he had a present for me.  Most guys bring flowers or chocolates or something else totally generic and devoid of actual thought, but he brought a c.d.  Okay, I know that’s strange, but on our first date two and  half weeks prior, I mentioned that while I was in London, a band I really liked was putting out a new c.d.  Well, he bought it!  He actually listened to what I was saying, remembered and bought it for me.  I was completely flabbergasted.  I’m pretty sure that prior to my husband, no man actually made a mental note like that.  He still does it to this day-he’ll surprise me with theater tickets because I mentioned a show I wanted to see.  He’s unbelievably thoughtful.  Because he didn’t know New York he asked his New York friends about good restaurants and activities for us to do-he researched and made everything special, instead of just winging it.

While watching the Tonys earlier this year, I mentioned that I didn’t want to go to sleep until I’d seen the segment from Roger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella-that it had been one of my favorite musicals as a child.  I still remember going with my father to Erroll’s and being allowed to pick out one video rental.  I always wondered why the Beta section was so large with a much better selection, and I couldn’t understand why Beta wouldn’t work in our VHS player.  I’m sure my parents must have explained it to me, I do remember a friend who had a Beta player, but I think my 7-year-old brain had trouble wrapping itself around the difference.  Sometimes I rented the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.  And sometimes, I rented Cinderella.  So at 31 it didn’t seem strange at all to be singing along to “In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be,” while my hubby looked at me somewhat askance.  He’d heard me sing the song before, I sing it to Lily all the time, but this was different.  He made a mental note.

Less than a month later, after Lily went through a horrible bout of separation anxiety (from which I wanted to abandon my life), the hubby came home with a surprise: he had, behind my back, booked my mom as babysitter and purchased tickets to go see Cinderella.  He could see how tired I was, how worn out and down I had been getting, and he thought I deserved a treat.  What man does this?  No one I’d ever dated before my husband was this thoughtful or compassionate or loving. 

When my friends complain about their husbands or boyfriends or ex-husbands, I normally just sit there with my hands quietly folded in my lap.  Sure, things aren’t perfect, and my hubby and I have our issues (in general, men are idiots, and he certainly has his moments), but I don’t want to complain. 

I hope that Lily has the luxury of one day meeting a man like her dad, so that she knows what it’s like to be loved and respected like this.  I hope that, as the first man in her little life, Lily realizes what men can be like, that men like her dad do exist, and that they are totally worth waiting for!