With less than one year until “I do” I thought it would be the perfect time to share how we met. Whenever someone asks us how we met we smile at each other and explain how we met in line not online.
Phil (or P as I refer to him on the interweb) and I met back in August of 2015. I was just out of college and was working all the time so I could move out on my own, while also spending days interviewing so I could find my perfect career that was promised to me as part of the American dream package we all subscribed to.
Looking for Mr. Right Now
Anyways, I was working as a hostess in Back Bay at this fancy overpriced restaurant. I spend my summer working, shopping, and dating randos. I loved getting dressed up and going out on dates, solely for the free meals #sorrynotsorry. This was pretty much my hobby back then, I was a proud serial dater with no intentions of looking for “the one”. Your girl had goals to have a beautiful apartment in the city, find the job of her dreams, and be too booked and busy for a traditional relationship. I had never been in love, my longest “steady” relationship was three months. I’m not going to say that I had commitment issues, but I just didn’t see the appeal of relationships or love in general. After spending my whole youth being told what to do and feel I was finally within an arm’s reach of independence. I just wanted to be completely free and unbound.
This all changed when I was cut early from my double shift and my friend (at the time) convinced me to go out instead of head home. Does anyone else have this friend? The one that’s always down to go out anytime, anywhere, and get completely black out each and every time? I agreed to go out with her which meant I agreed to any potential fun, chaos, or danger that would ensue. Remember, I was 22 at the time
Entry fee
After one whole bottle of wine to my face, I found myself outside waiting to enter a club. Besides my 21st birthday and a couple shady times in college, I don’t do clubs. But here I was waiting in line in a little black dress with my dear friend yelling at the bouncer “I’ll show you my T*ts if you let us in” this threat did not get the bouncer’s attention, but did get the attention of the group of guys in front of us. Now, I’m a big people watcher, I like to be a bystander in these hilarious situations. I watched as my friends started talking to them. Everyone was laughing and joking, everyone except one guy in the back who seems to be doing the same thing as me. Observing, laughing, and wondering how we got into this situation.
So that bottle of wine and 5 years between today and that day, makes it a little hard to remember the details. But I do know that out of all people in that line, I only remember seeing him.
I remember those shy smiles we gave each other (which is unlike me, at the time I was more of a “buy me a drink and then we’ll talk” kinda girl). We were having our own eyeball conversation while our friends had their own real life verbal exchange. Laughs and jokes filled the air, maybe it had to do with her sparkling personality, or what she may or may not have pierced but everyone was having a good time in that line. Well, besides that one almost fight between two bros. In no time we were inside the dark loud club with our respective groups.
How all love Storyville’s should start
Now inside the hot and muggy lower level of this club, so fittingly named Storyville, I gather around my girls having lost sight of the guys…not that I was looking for him. We get our drinks and scan the crowd… again not like I was looking for anyone in particular. But it wasn’t long until he found me on the dance floor. We screamed our names into each other’s ear, and then he leaned in and said “Will anyone be upset with me if I dance with you” Wow, consent IS sexy.
Not to be cheesy but we literally danced all night, like the sweat pouring down our backs, but not wanting to be the first one to call it quits kind of dancing. For a khaki pants wearing white guy he kept up with these Jamaican hips pretty well. Ever the gentleman, he kept his hands in sight and only kissed me on the cheek right before getting yanked away with his friends who were also his ride. Yes after hours of dancing and sweating on each other, I only got a name and a kiss on the check. No phone number exchange. Poof, he was gone like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight.
New phone who dis?
“Did he really not ask for my number?” I mumbled to myself as I headed to the bar but swiftly turned away when I saw the lurking eyes of desperate last call dwellers. It was as I was scanning the dark club for my friends when I locked eyes with P pushing through the sea of gyrating bodies to get to me. I beamed and met him halfway, “can I have your number” i’m assuming he said or something along those lines. I stumbled over my digits, “ 781-866, no! 617-866- wait, no its 781-866” at this point I was a bottle of wine and several vodka sodas deep and a brand new phone number didn’t help. I gave him what I believed was my number and off he went back upstairs to the waiting car filled with his friends to head back to his village aka home an hour away from the city.
Again, I watch him leave and turn back to search the depths of this cave, I mean club, for my friends. “Wait, did I give him the right number???” I stopped in my tracks and weighed my options. I can 1: hope for the best and continue to look for my friends 2. Just in case give him both combinations of the potential number. 3. Ask for his number. I picked options two and three and raced up the stairs to go find him and return his glass slipper (aka my number).
For a girl that freshly swore off dating I was honestly doing the absolute most.
Once upstairs I push past the bouncer who tells me that if leave then I won’t be allowed back in. I found out later that this same bouncer tried to stop Phil from reentering but he risked injury to life and limb and pushed past the bouncer, “There is a girl inside there and I need to get her number.” #swoon
I worked my charm or maybe he just felt bad for the drunk sweaty girl but I was allowed to go no further than where the curb ends. Again, I scanned the street but shocker, he was gone!
Standing there alone outside of a club at 1 AM, I finally bossed up and decided that it was out of my hands. If I gave him the correct number then cool, if I didn’t then whatever, I have my mind set on bigger things than a nice guy who was fun to dance with.
Two day rule
The next day I did my best to control the leap of excitement every time my phone buzzed and then smothered any trace of disappointment that it wasn’t him. I am way too cool and collected to be waiting by the phone for some random guy I met at a…club. Who was I? I am used to being wined, dined, and living my best Hot Girl Summer before Hot Girl Summer was even a thing. Why did this rando have me so sprung?
Buzz Buzz Buzz my phone goes off at an unnaturally early Monday Morning. 7 AM on Monday is way too early for a girl who works nights cuz she doesnt have a real job yet but I sweep my hand across the bed to find the phone because the more I awake I become the more that stupid bubble of excitment grows.
“Hey it’s phil, I was told to wait two days before texting and it’s the morning of the 2nd so hey!”
So I did what any rational young millennial woman adult would do, I waited hours to respond.
& the rest was history.
With Love,
Dani
This is my introduction post in my relationships series where I will write about: maintaining self-love while in a relationship, how he proposed, dating someone with anxiety, mindful wedding planning, and all other fun and messy stuff that comes up with love.