In May 2007, I placed an ad in the W4M section of San Francisco’s CraigsList looking for the usual suspect: a smart, attractive, fincially secure man who loved dogs. My ad was much more cleverly worded than that, but in essence, it was all I wanted. I wasn’t sure that I was looking for serious relationship per se — I had had enough of those in recent years — but I knew I was looking for someone on whom I could count and also would let me hold my own. I received a decent number of replies and started dating a successful executive at a major biotech firm. While nothing was ‘wrong’ with how things were going with the exec, it didn’t feel ‘right’ either.
So in early June, while the exec and I were still dating, I went back to my CraigsList replies and my eyes settled on the photo of a tall, blond Ukrainian business student. “He’s cute,” I thought. “Almost too cute. But I will give it a shot.” On June 8, 2007 — the same day I was scheduled to go rockclimbing with the biotech exec — the Ukrainian and I had our first date. We met for lunch. Lunch turned into a movie. After the movie, there was dinner. And dinner was followed by a drink at a bar which wasn’t far from some dance clubs…so we went clubbing. Barely more than 9 months later, we were married in San Francisco’s city hall.
So far, it has felt as if our first date has never ended.
Tonight, I’ve begun my lessons in learning Russian. Since we don’t expect to travel to the FSU until sometime in 2009, I have the leisure of learning at my own pace. I don’t yet need to know how to say, “How do I get to the Metro?” As such, I am opting for the Rosetta Stone method. I completed section A of Lesson 1 tonight. I can say dog, cat, woman, girl etc. We’ll see how it goes.
