TheBanyanTree: Love is Where You Find It and Proposal by Text

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Love is Where You Find It
 
I gave online dating a rest after my initial frustrations.

Then one boring night, I decided to clean out all the matches I had for
eHarmony.  Archive, archive, archive, which is kind of like eHarmony’s way
of deleting.  You can bring them back if you want, but it gets some of the
guys you’re not interested in off of your radar.

I saw a couple of possibilities, so I shot off those canned easy to answer
template emails to them.  I almost lost this one guy to the archive file; I
noticed he read Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.  I found that intriguing,
so I grabbed him out of the archive pile and sent him that little survey
email.

Well, he answered me on May 6.  Then I answered him.  He sent an icebreaker.
I sent him an icebreaker.  Then we started emailing through eHarmony.  And
finally we made the big move and gave each other our email addresses and now
we skip eHarmony entirely.

Right before I left on my trip, we exchanged phone numbers, and I talked to
him before going up north.  I liked him.

He’s my age, just four months older.  He’s a boilermaker, he’s been a
boilermaker for 35 years, which is interesting since I know very little
about unions, especially the trades.  He makes as much money as I do.  He
lives in Sioux City, IA, but is working on a power plant project in
O’Fallon, IL, just outside of St Louis, MO.  He’s been there since April 22.
He’s never been married.  He doesn’t have children.  His house is paid off.

He doesn’t drink or smoke.

He works four 10 hour days Monday through Thursday, and eight hour days on
Friday and Saturday.  He said there are 3400 people currently working on
constructing this power plant.  It’s HUGE.

We have some interesting conversations about politics, religion, homes,
personal stuff, and finances.  He seems to be very compassionate, but not to
the point of helping every person who comes by.

We text, email, and phone each other constantly.  We’re in the getting to
know each other phase which is time consuming, but fun.

He’s planning to retire when he’s 58, and he would like to have someone for
companionship.  His job and the amount of traveling he has to do has made it
difficult for him to find someone to marry, plus he said he hasn’t met
anyone he’s wanted to marry – that old standard line.  But that’s OK.

He reminds me of Ray, but not really quite like Ray.

He sent me a dozen roses.

He’s coming up here next weekend.

I’m very excited.

Proposal by Text

Frank proposed to me by text yesterday.  I kind of pooh poohed it, because
we haven’t even met and I’m still getting a handle on being single much less
looking at another marriage.

He backed off, but then brought it up again this afternoon.  Our pattern is
that we text each other throughout the day and then have a long phone
conversation in the evening before we go to bed.

So while texting back and forth, he brought it up again, and this time I
wrote back OK, along with of other mushy stuff.  He wrote back that he’s
never given a woman a ring or asked for her in marriage before.  

Actually, I’ve never had an engagement ring either.  The wedding band from
my first marriage had my mother’s diamond set in it and Tony and I decided
that could be our engagement and wedding band combo.   Then Ray and I used
the rings from our previous marriages for our own, because rings and stuff
like that didn’t matter to us.  I’ve worn this band then for 23 years.

I get from Frank that he’s a nice Catholic boy who doesn’t really believe in
messing around.  He doesn’t seem to mind I’ve been married twice and have a
son and two grandsons.  It’s part of the package for him.  

Did I say he’s ready to accompany me to see “Sex in the City” next weekend?
And he’s watched the show, so he knows the characters and the plot!!!  He’s
a real man in my book. 

He also wrote that we’ll shop for rings when he comes up.  It’s scary and
exciting all at the same time.

While we texting about rings, I heard a voice in my head saying, “It’s OK to
put the ring in the jewelry box now, love.”  I knew that was Ray.  He’s sick
of me crying and missing him, and he probably gave Frank a push to answer me
on eHarmony.  Because this relationship and the fact that Frank and I fit
together like two puzzle pieces is nothing short of a gift.

But I’ll never forget Ray.  I told Frank he’s reaping the benefits of my
relationship with Ray, because I learned through that relationship on how to
truly love a person and I’m sharing that knowledge with Frank.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
www.linkedin.com/in/margaretkramer

The body is your temple.  Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside
in.  
-B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga: The Path To Holistic Health