my story

The email address sounded vaguely familiar.

The online dating web site that processed and delivered it to my inbox revealed that yes, indeed, we had met before - maybe five years before. At lunch. And he had monopolized the entire conversation. Didn't invite me in once. I remember going back to work incensed and shaking my head. How could people be so boorish and egotistical?

Obviously he didn't recall any of this after bumping into me again in cyber space. His message was one of appreciation for my writing in my profile, and for a few things that we had in common. He was leaving for Europe in a few days and didn't want to dangle any carrots, but how about meeting for coffee, or something?

Something tugged at me to respond in spite of the residue from our past experience. So I replied.

A few hours later we were talking on the phone, arranging a time to meet over an early light dinner in a place we both knew.

I walked toward the restaurant having decided that I wasn't going to bring up our previous sharing of a meal and just enjoy what unfolded during this one. 

Which turned out to be a most pleasant, most charming, most delightful conversation, to which I was invited and to which I also contributed, unsolicited. The man sitting across the table from me hadn't changed. He was the same man I had spent time with years ago. I was the one who was different. I finally had something to say, and the inclination to say it.

At one point, the universe delivered an opening, the perfect opening, that allowed me to say, "Funny you bring that up, because we HAVE met before."

Stunned silence for a beat.

"About five years ago. We had lunch in a bistro at the balcony of the mall. I understand why you wouldn't remember, because I didn't have anything to say back then. I was invisible, even to me."

More silence with memory wheels churning in the background.

Then a smile of vague recollection. And gracious acknowledgment and self deprecation.

And I knew I had to drop my story.

The one about monopolizing and boorish and egotistical.

It just wasn't true.