Near Miss: A Texas Parable

Robotnik's post on "connections" had me thinking of my own life's experience with fate, connections we don't always see, the plan, the gods, etc. So here it is, another post about my sweetie.

I met Andrew about a year before I "met" him. At the time, living in Pensacola where my good friend Jenni & I worked at a frame shop & liked to go out dancing at Seville Quarter, I was, to my way of thinking, still "attached" to the evil ex. Evil ex lived in another town, was barely there for me (for a sec I typed barefly-- so close to barfly that it's a definite Freudian slip!) and was dating other women, without officially informing me of said fact. So really, I ought to have been having fun. I was just under 21, it was summer in Florida, and we were hot young chicks. Jenni knew this girl named Rachel, who was the daughter of one of the base commanders on Pensacola N.A.S., and dating a guy who was in the military (der!) Jenni & Rachel were going out, so I got invited to go too. Before we headed to the bar, we stopped at Rachel's house to pick her up. Here's where the Andrew connection comes in.

Rachel lived with this military guy, and three other roommates-- all guys. Well, one of them was married and his wife lived there too, but mostly it was military guy home. We had to wait for Rachel. I sat on the edge of the brick fireplace while these three typical military guys sat on the Salvation Army style couch across the room. A kitten moseyed her way over to me to say hello-- rolling on the carpet, swatting at my hand with sharp little needle-claws. I rolled her around on the carpet and indulged her kittenly-wrath.

After a few minutes, this nice-looking guy with those wire-rimmed glasses military fellas wear came over and also played with the kitty, calling it a "Little Gato." He didn't really come on to me or anything, but I remembered him being nice, and thought it was cool that some guy was friendly without getting anything out of it. I thought he was cute and all, but he really just wasn't my type, so I didn't pursue anything. In retrospect, I can see the "fates" who tried to line up that moment smacking themselves on the forehead going "doh! it didn't work! Now what?" It took them a while to arrange another sequence of events so that we would meet. Poor things; they had their work cut out for them.

We three hot young babes went out, danced it up, had a good time. I continued to date the evil ex for a while, to somewhat disastrous consequences which I will not go into here.

About a year later, finally quit of the bad seed from high school boyfriend, I was free free free!! I got a new job at Zapata's Mexican restaurant, and kept running into Texas symbolism. In the year past, Jenni had gotten a job for an airline and lived in Houston, and I was seriously considering moving there with her, going to school there, just getting out of Florida. I figured all the Texas things were because of that. My workplace had dozens of "Don't Mess with Texas" signs & I won a "DMWT" coffee mug in a work contest. One night while out, I met a guy from Texas (an Aggie through & through, chewing tobacco & playing pool) in a bar and flirted/chatted with him (I think he had a girlfriend and was quite gentlemanly). A couple of my co-workers were from Texas. Texas seemed everywhere. It seemed to be calling me, and I thought seriously about answering, even before I met my real reason for being here now.

I met Andrew. He was from Texas and was such a nice guy and I liked dating him. We were going for a "no-ties" sort of dating fun, and it was working pretty well for a while (till he tricked me into saying I loved him first, that wanker... but that's another story). At Zapata's restaurant, I also worked with Rachel, and we occasionally had a shift together. One day, she smirk-i-ly asked me if I was indeed dating Andrew. Yes, well, we were having fun. She told me that she had been his room-mate, and wondered what happened to Debbie, Andrew's ex. I told her I didn't really know, I hadn't been too prying. But that's when the connection became pretty clear.

Andrew had to have been the nice guy I "met" at Rachel's place a year before. None of the other roommates were the type to use "Gato" in a sentence-- they were from Alabama and other parts east of the Mississippi. The casual Spanish use of Texans was not part of their deal. I asked Andrew about it and he said "Ah, Rachel was always bringing hot girls back to the house". He didn't specifically remember me, but I'm quite certain of the fact that we "met" before our fated first meeting. It was sort of a trial run, I guess. If I had been smarter, and flirted and decided I wasn't into the evil ex, I would have averted the disaster of a year I had with him. I'm sure, given the right encouragement, Andrew would have then gone with us to our dancing thing, or at the least, asked for my number. We would have met sooner. But the gods were dangling my perfect man in front of me and I was not paying attention. Fate. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.

Who I am is the sum of the good AND bad experiences of my life, and I'm fine with that. Even the heartbreak and life-issues that happened in the intervening year make me who I am, and make me a stronger person. But man, would it not have been nice to have a nice guy around sooner?

I always tell women and men who are having successive bad relationships, dating essentially "the same person" over and over again to think about dating someone else who they are not attracted to initially. Who they think is attractive, but is "not their type." Because we get stuck in these self-destructive patterns and sometimes don't even realize it. So far, not very many people have listened to my wise advice. I thank god, the goddess, the fates, the great divine donut hole of the universe, whatever deity you want to give credit to, that I finally wised up and found myself smack in the middle of those "connections" that someone had lined up for me.