No Guarantees

I was never one of those guys that could just walk up to a woman and chat her up. Some guys are really quite smooth and always seem to know the right words to say to a woman. I was never one of those guys.

I knew a guy once that managed to pick up a telephone operator and make a date for later in the evening. The really remarkable thing was that she was looking up a phone number for another girl that he was dating. I suppose that if I could have done more than stammer and giggle I might have been more successful at meeting girls.

A good friend of mine and I decided that we would go over to Toronto Island and wouldn’t come back until we met some girls. He was just a shy as I was, but in my mind he had a lot more to offer a prospective mate than I did. Needless to say, we ended up spending the day riding around and around the Island and the only talking that we did was to each other. Pitiful!

I was pretty sure that I would eventually get married, but the only way that I could see it happening was if my parents arranged a marriage. Since we didn’t come from a society that practiced arranged marriages, the chances were slim to none. A guy can hope though. I had pretty much given up on meeting a girl on my own, when I ran into Louise at a store that a buddy of mine owned. She was working at a gas station nearby and I was killing time until my friends finished work for the day. She seemed like a very smart person (she is) and at the time I liked to hang around smart people as they challenged me to be better than I was. Now, the dumber my friends are the better. Sorry friends. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t even thinking of “girlfriend”, I was just thinking of girl friend.

We did hit it off, and soon became an item. Ever since that day I have thanked the stars that she and I somehow met. I couldn’t calculate the odds of our meeting, but it has to be far greater than the odds of winning the lottery, or even of Steven Harper telling the truth.

The point is that tomorrow (March 14) is her birthday and I am happy that she is still with me. I don’t understand it, but it is one of those things you just ignore and hope that she doesn’t wake up one morning, look at me and say to herself “What the Hell???” I guess I am living a morning at a time.

I just want to wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I want to promise that I will try to start being the man you saw hidden in the boy all of those years ago.

No guarantees though.