It began unlike most love affairs, with missed moments and crossed paths, though perhaps that is the way of love. It finds you, out of your hands really, you just need to open to it when it is presented to you. When your soul finds its other half, you best recognize and accept that love.
I was not open to love. Though less so than most others in New York City, I had become bitter and jaded. An ex left me with nothing but pessimism, debt and scars. In theory she was what I was looking for, but in practice she proved that I was a masochistic fool.
Months after our breakup, I found myself piecing my life back together, scraping up money for food while paying off what I owed, trying to secure a new place to live while subletting in Harlem, sleeping on an air mattress with a backpack full of t-shirts and jeans.
I had tried my hand at dating but relationship fatigue had set in and I found no one worth the effort. I had much to give a girl, a wealth of emotional depth and sensitivity for days. I was a tender soul that was eager to be appreciated for the thoughtfulness and sweetness I could give.
Those things that more often than not scared girls, forced them into an abusive role, dismissing my affection and rejecting who I was, used perhaps for the surface me, enjoyed only as an ideal and not as a person. Always too much to handle, made to believe that I was in the wrong, that I was mad thinking that love existed in this city.
This ex did one thing for me that would redeem her for all her faults, make up for every hurtful comment. She talked to a girl and recommended that this girl get in touch with me. In a brief stint when this ex and I did get along, she mentioned that a redhead who drew comics would contact me, as she thought that we would hit it off.
Wait, it's not Laura Lee is it?
Indeed, it was. The same Laura Lee who my friend Reilly had told me about a year before. The artist who had a space in his studio who's workspace I glanced over at while talking to Reilly about our comic. Once I had seen her there working and was too intimidated to do much more than mutter hello.
Maybe it was my then lack of confidence that made me less than a blip on her radar, for at that time I was really going through the worst my life has had to offer thus far. That's probably why I didn't register her presence at Reilly's birthday party, and why she ignored me at Becky Cloonan's Demo party at Rocketship comics weeks later.
I spent that winter regaining my strength, fighting through depression and finding a way to end the disastrous relationship I had found myself stuck in. It wasn't until the Spring that I would see her again but after an awkward icebreaker we both ran off, so I assumed that she was not interested and that I was better off single.
So imagine my shock when I received a Facebook message saying that we should hang out towards the end of the Summer. I couldn't imagine that what I was reading was right. What was it that my ex could have said that changed her opinion of me? I think that my ex's suggestion had put me on her radar, and suddenly there we were, about to meet up for drinks.
I didn't have any expectations. I had rid myself finally of my ex after she drunkenly snapped at me via text (on a phone I was still paying for) and removed all traces of her. But here was this date that was happening based on her recommendation and with someone who hadn't noticed me before. It certainly didn't bode well, especially with my aversion to dating at that point.
But I was nervous. The actual date was set up rather quickly via Facebook chat one Saturday night while I was at work. I liked her status, which prompted her to message me. In an hour and a half we'd have drinks in South Park Slope at Buttermilk Bar, just about 20 blocks of my new apt in Sunset Park.
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