I witnessed a very interesting thing recently. I actually watched the magic surrounding a 'how we met' story disappear. I was at a party where my friend (we'll call her Wendy) brought her new boyfriend (we'll call him Grinch) who was quite nice and seemed to like her a lot. After the Grinch finished many, many drinks of many varieties, I asked him for his side of the story of how they met, or how they were introduced to each other. He thought that a wonderful idea, and would like to write a book presenting both sides of those stories of different relationships. He thought his book idea was quite a good one as well, if he may say so. After some steering back to the subject of how they met on my part, he began to tell it.
The story I know from Wendy is this: Wendy's mother was in the locker room of her club, talking to a younger woman about the smallnesses of life, when the woman's husband called into the locker room and asked if she would like a cocktail. The woman replied that she would and thanked him. Wendy's mother was struck by the considerate gesture, and wished the same for her daughter, Wendy, living in New York and single. The woman perked right up and remembered that her husband had a single friend in New York, and wouldn't it be nice if they met. Numbers were exchanged, and eventually the two spoke, dated, and continued to date happily.
Here's where Grinch's side of the story colors the otherwise adjectiveless story: the Grinch's friend is actually an alcoholic, and hates his wife. They've been married (or dating, can't remember) for fourteen years, and he's sick of her! He just asked her for a drink because he wanted a drink! The Grinch couldn't believe his luck, or how this gesture of his alcoholic friend could have snowballed Wendy's mother and her friend! He just couldn't believe it and wouldn't stop talking about it!
When I asked Grinch how he came to actually call Wendy after being given the number, he couldn't remember.
This story left quite an impression in my mind, which means that yes, Grinch's idea of a book of many of these sorts of stories would be an interesting one. But not necessarily a valuable one, if they didn't all have happy or respectable endings.
The poor Grinch proceeded to have a plain old very drunk night. Come to think of it, this is the second relationship I've watch unravel before my eyes. The first was of my blogging friend, and her blog stalker (they were fixed up over email, chatted, really hit it off, he flew in from another state to visit, and proceeded to be overcome with insecurity and picked fights with my friend and pouted all through the date we were all on to meet him). It's not over yet, as the incident just happened, but there is a potential, as Wendy had quietly noted to me in the kitchen of the party with the tiniest tears in her eyes: "You know how I was saying he was too good to be true? Well..."
I'm not sure how to close this post, so I'll just close it with this: insecurity + lots of alcohol of many varieties=not very good things to come.