NEVER Go on a Blind Date

I sat in my car waiting to go into the gym. It was a stormy fall night in Omaha. The rain pounded on the pavement while the cracking of lightning filled the dark sky. I was on the phone with Garrett, who was at the time, my friend from Denver. This was in late October 2009.

Garrett: “Sandy, whatever you do, NEVER go on a blind date.”

It was a tumultuous year for me. My divorce year. I filed for divorce in December 2008. The entire year of 2009 was filled with lawyers, parenting plans, and lots of arguing. My three sons were still young with nine years left until they were through high school. Following the advice of a friend, I personally vowed not to date for three years post-divorce. My focus was to be on my boys and my career.

Garrett continued to explain the horror of blind dates to me over the loud rumbles of thunder. Well-meaning people, typically your close friends, set you up with other friends or even their relatives. You have never met the individual you would be meeting for dinner. Thus, a blind date.

Before my divorce papers were even inked, I met Garrett. He became my friend and divorcee advisor. The coincidence of our lives crossing was serendipitous. Like me, Garrett had just gone through an unexpected divorce. Our kids were of similar ages and attended parochial schools. Marrying our college sweethearts, neither of us had a thought that our marriages would not last until death do us part. Then instead, 2008 became an early parting date for both of our unions.

Garrett and I initially met in early October 2009 at a Denver conference. Our interaction was quick and casual. Garrett was the speaker. I was an attendee. I immediately liked him.

A follow-up work-related call resulted in a Facebook friend invite. With our personal lives exposed on our profiles, FB messages quickly followed. Learning we were both recently divorced, we shared the sudden reality of our new single-parent, single-person situations.

Exchanging phone numbers we connected the next day, a Sunday night after our kids were in bed. Our first call lasted over three hours. As we each shared our stories, I sat huddled in my bedroom closet with the door closed. I didn’t want to risk my boys hearing a word of the conversation with my new friend in Denver. That was the beginning of marathon daily calls between Garrett and me.

We would talk at length about the happenings in our lives and then would sprinkle texts to each other throughout the day, always filled with playful banter. No one in my world knew Garrett but me. He was my secret friend and I loved his virtual company.

We quickly became each other’s trusted advisor. Stumbling through our new parallel lives, we were having the same life experiences. Well-intended parents at our kids’ Catholic schools were pressuring us to start annulments before we even started working on ourselves. We still harbored feelings of pain and regret in our breakups. Our emotional tanks were empty.

I loved having someone to lean on who knew nothing of my professional or personal life in Omaha. His input was not biased given the 550 miles between our homes. My Omaha social standing was irrelevant to him. Garrett’s interest was in the authentic me that he discovered one phone call and text at a time.

As I waited out the thunderstorm, I was now curious about this blind dating debacle. Since my divorce was not yet final, friends had only begun broaching this subject. Hints were dropped on an unofficial catalog of prospective suitors.

Garrett: “The person you go on the blind date with may be a wonderful person, BUT there may be no chemistry. And if there is no chemistry, the date is miserable. Then you have to explain to the person who set you up why you don’t want to go on a second date. It’s awful.”

This schooling on dating was much appreciated since my last date was when I was nineteen. The thought was daunting. I hadn’t shared with Garrett my vow not to date for three years, perhaps my subliminal way to keep the door open. Garrett warned that dating in your 40s was not a walk in the park, especially on a blind date.

Me: “That sounds awful! Then you have to spend two hours with someone you aren’t interested in? And come up with a reason why you don’t want to go on another date? No way. I am not dating anyone I don’t have chemistry with.”

Garrett <without missing a beat>: “We have chemistry. Why don’t we date?”

Me: <laugh> “Because we live 550 miles apart.”

Garrett: “We could meet halfway.”

Me: “Have you been to Nebraska? You Google that and let me know what that looks like.”

(Footnote: Garrett had not been to Nebraska.)

We finished our call as the rain let up and I went into the gym.

For the next couple of days, I kept thinking about Garrett’s comment. It was inconceivable. This could never work. How could I possibly go on a date with a guy from Denver? And what about my three-year rule?

As I was thinking through all the impossibilities, I finally confided in a friend. I thought I was going to be instructed that dating a guy from Denver was a really bad idea. Instead, he told me to go for it. Garrett and I had chemistry and he sounded like a great guy. Why not?

I immediately sent a text to Garrett via my Blackberry.

“Were you serious when you asked me on a date?”

The red light on my trusted communication device quickly lit up. The response was a resounding “YES!”

Our first date was two weeks later with me flying to Denver. Garrett picked me up at the airport and we continued our conversations into the night over dinner and margaritas. One of my first questions, as we settled past small talk, was asking Garrett about his life to date. He thought I meant recently and started going into detail about his adult years.

“No, no,” I told him. “Go all the way back. I want to hear about you as a kid, your childhood. Start with Chapter One.”

Rather than starting by telling me about his degree in aerospace engineering from Purdue, He told me about one of his earliest memories of sitting on his grandma’s lap while watching the first moonwalk. She woke up four-year-old Garrett and brought him in front of her TV and onto her lap. On a dark Indiana night, they shared this great moment in history. This was the catalyst for Garrett’s interest in aerospace. His eyes were misty as he talked about his love for the grandma who helped raise him in his early years.

Much later in our dating, Garrett told me about another bad date where he spent two hours over dinner with a woman who didn’t ask him a single question about himself. She only talked about herself. They went on a second date as Garrett thought maybe it was first-date jitters. Nope. Not a single question on the second date either. My interest in Garrett’s life stories scored me dating points although, at the time, this was unbeknownst to me.

This was the beginning of a new chapter in our lives, the Sandy & Garrett chapter (Chapter Three). Nothing was conventional or easy for our first nine years of this chapter. The long commute between states juggling airline flights was part of our routine. Only recently with our move to Durango have we begun easing into that “When Harry Met Sally” ending; the part where the old couples talk about how they met and the key to their relationship longevity.

Personally, I think Garrett’s advice on blind dates was sound. Although a blind date comes from the good intention of a well-meaning third party, the only point of reference is what that person thinks you have in common. It is a match made from outside opinions and expectations of others.

Building a relationship around friendship was a wonderful place to start. We had a spectacular first date followed by many happily ever afters.

The decision to move our friendship into courtship was formed over those many hours of conversations across state lines. We authentically sought to know each other with no pre-existing expectations.

And then, of course, there was the chemistry…….