I can thank Dan Brown and his solidly ok novel, Deception Point, for introducing me to the girl who I have been dating for the past three and a half years.
You see, I was at work lifeguarding a neighborhood pool I had been at for a couple of summers when a very pretty girl came by to tan and swim. I watched her sit down behind my sunglasses, hoping that she would not catch me staring, as I thought of a way to start a conversation. For a good 30 minutes I tried to think of a way to introduce myself without being creepy, and as the clock ticked down the minutes towards the adult swim when I would have to walk by her, I was nervously thinking of anything to say to this girl to not come across as a weirdo.
After 10 agonizing minutes in thought, I had to get up and take my adult swim break. I got off the stand with nothing, I was drawing dead as poker players say. Every step toward her chair was agony, until I saw that she was reading a book, and not just a regular book, but one I had read before. So as I am walking by, I blurt out "That is a good book you are reading," and then scampered away before this beautiful girl could reply. In my mind, I had done all I could. The ball was now in her court, so if she decided to talk to me, it was all up to her.
Following the break, I walked around the opposite end of the pool so that there would be no awkwardness, and got back in my stand to stare at the bottom of the pool for another hour. The next thing I know, pretty girl herself is jumping into the pool and heading my way. My lord, my line actually worked. Chalk that up as the worst pick up line of all time, but it worked. All of a sudden, I had just met my girlfriend, Cassie, and we have been together for three and a half years now. I don't think anybody who could have seen my conversation starter would have known what they were looking at, the start of a long term relationship. And I can't blame them; after all, my friend Matt swears that I am "hitting way over my batting average" with Cassie.
After that first conversation, we had the what is supposed to be really awkward first date, but it went fabulously. Or it must have, because Cassie decided I was worth seeing again. Then, she passed the crucial test of meeting my two dogs, and it wasn't long until we were dating, ready to face the difficulty of a long distance college relationship.
I am writing this because I can't help but think of how extraordinarily bad my opening line was. Every time we tell the story of how we met to people, they laugh at how awful I was at starting the conversation. My college buddies used to do a creepily accurate impersonation of me walking by and blurting out "Thats a good book you are reading" to hilarious results.
As time has gone by, we have built a good relationship together, despite all of the difficulty that living hours apart entails. We have learned to cherish the weekends, winter breaks, and summertime that we get to spend together, which has let us appreciate the other more that we might have otherwise. We just had our 4th Valentines day together, which we spent cooking together, dancing to country music in her living room, and watching her beloved Disney movies. Looking back, I can't help but shake my head at both how we started, and all of the good times that have led to us today.
So everyone, raise your glasses and tip your caps to Dan Brown's 4 star rated novel Deception Point, because it got my relationship of three and a half years started.
You may never read that sentence ever again, which is what makes it beautiful.
