I’ve lived long enough to know that there is no secret formula to falling in love. Love hits you at the most extraordinary times, like an ambush, sometimes defying all rhyme or reason. Take the case of Esfandiar and I. We had been friends for four years, not even the best of friends, and the thought of him as a romantic item had truly never crossed my mind. It hadn’t crossed his either, nor the forty plus mutual friends that we had. Who knew that instead of ending this friendship, his standing me up on a raquetball date would spark a romance that has led to thirty five years of great adventures. When he had stood me up, instead of apologizing, he had called to simply state the fact that he wasn’t there, and I had thought, “what a jerk.” On a later phone call an hour later, when he was more contrite about his absence, he had explained that he had been exhausted from a Tahoe trip the night before and that his brain hadn’t been fully functional. He wanted to make it up, if I were still available, by having coffee at Cafe Milano, which wasn’t too far from where I lived.
I could have said no, and my life could have taken a different turn. Instead, I said yes, and I started falling in love.