The Words

The Night I Met My Wife

The night I met my wife was, apart from my birth, without doubt, the singularly most significant event in my life, which happens to be the single most important event in each of your own lives as well. But there is much ground for us to cover before I delve into making sense of this statement. As I promised, In the Beginning, "All in good time."

Of course, as is the case with any such significant occurrences, I can claim no awareness of the magnitude of the event at the time. More the case, I spent the better part of that evening lost in utter disbelief that a single instant of it was in any part reality, even as I lived and experienced it. Nothing could have prepared me for, I could never have anticipated, nor could I have fantasized those few hours of that evening in advance without the immediate recognition of the absurdity of their possibility. So, it shouldn't be surprising that I am less than confident in my recollection of specific details.

A group of friends from high school - those with sense enough to submit applications to the university a few miles over the state line - discovered a club near the campus that served watered-down beer to those of us not yet legal to purchase the high test. It, the beer, was awful. But it contained sufficient alcohol to loosen the grip of my inhibitions occasionally. So, we made the trek to the club most Saturday evenings. In addition to drinking watered-down beer, the club's other obvious attraction was girls. Whether meeting girls was more the objective than drinking depended on which of us you asked. I'd never developed the knack of making small talk or casual comfort around girls. So, I was mostly there to drink. Drive home as carefully as possible. Then slip as silently as possible past my mother before she had an opportunity to smell my breath.

After a drink or two, or more, I occasionally worked up the courage to ask one of the girls at the club to dance. But it was an incredibly intimidating act, made intentionally so, I believed, to approach a group of these young women, huddled together, with no simple way of separating one from their pack, to avoid having an audience for the rejection I anticipated. No, the mere request to speak to one privately generally resulted in public rejection humiliating enough to leave further questions moot. Pairs of eyes flitted from one to the other the instant any males ventured near their pack, as silent assessments were telepathically shared. I put myself through this ordeal less than once each weekend, twice at most if I was feeling particularly masochistic or drunk enough not to care. And more than once, one would enthusiastically agree to dance; then, rather than follow me to the dance floor, they'd hurry for the exit with their giggling herd.

One of my friends did suggest that I might have fewer rejections if I didn't make it so obvious that I expected them in advance. Feeling bad after listening to enough of my drunken complaints about my inability to meet girls, he'd asked a few of his lady friends their opinion and assured me, none of them thought I was a bad-looking guy. Rather cute, one had acknowledged, to a round of harassment from her girlfriends. But, of course, my friend wouldn't tell me which of the girls it had been, only that all of them concurred that I was a decent dancer. He also inferred that I'd probably had more success than I gave myself credit, just not so much on follow-ups.

Even with such assurances, I continued to find myself unprepared for a girl agreeing to dance with me. I occasionally needed to ask a second time to be sure I'd heard them correctly - opening myself up to, "On second thought," rejections. On those unexpected occasions, when I managed not to derail my good fortune before reaching the dance floor, the ritual I'd developed was to dance for a few songs. Then I offered to buy the girl a beer since this appeared to be a successful approach for my friends. Beyond which, I was out of game. In addition to the music being too loud for any conversations not requiring leaning close and yelling, I had no idea what to ask or volunteer about myself.

No, I wasn't taking classes at the university like my friends. I hadn't thought to apply until too late. Instead, I had a job at a factory that left me smelling badly enough at the end of the workday that no one wanted to be in the same room before I'd stripped off my clothes and showered. Fortunately, what had been the old indoor/outhouse was located within what had become the laundry room in the rear of the house. And I could attend to both a shower and my clothing without venturing into the kitchen or further.