Life of the Lintee Bean

I don’t date often, to put it mildly. In fact, until recently I hadn’t been on a single date in more than EIGHT YEARS. In large part, it just didn’t seem worth the bother – awkward dinners with someone I barely know, struggling to make small talk? Not my idea of a great time. In larger part, I don’t think a woman my age with a LOT of cats is considered much of a “prize” in the dating department.

I’d pretty much resigned to staying “dateless”. However, I recently reconnected with a man I’d known years ago. We’ll call him Kirk, since that’s his name. In 1993, I moved into the same building and started work at the same company as a woman we’ll call Patricia (since that’s her name). I got to know Patricia, her brother, and her sisters, and they invited me to several summer parties, weekend ski trips, etc. Kirk is a friend of Patricia’s brother and also attended most of these functions.

On the first ski trip, I had a few drinks (okay, more than a few) and sat in Kirk’s lap. For many men, this would be an obvious sign I was interested in them. Apparently, Kirk was too much of a gentleman to pursue a woman who’d had more than a few drinks, or just thought I‘d wanted to sit down and didn’t realize he was already sitting in that particular spot – because nothing came of it.

We continued to see each other at parties and ski trips over the years. Kirk lived in Wisconsin and I lived in Chicago, so the geographical situation was a bit of an obstacle – as well as the minor detail that for most of this time, I was dating someone else.

Around 1998 to 1999, Patricia, her brother, and her sister all moved out of the area, and the parties and ski trips stopped. I didn’t see Kirk anymore. However, a few months ago a conversation with a friend reminded me of him, and I decided to search for him on the Internet – a little activity I call “cyber-stalking”. I found him on Facebook, and discovered he’d moved to Chicago and now lived only six blocks from me! I sent him a message, effectively demanding he go to dinner with me. So, about fifteen to sixteen years after we first met, we had our first date. At the end of this date, I grabbed him and kissed him full on the mouth. This was considerably less subtle than sitting in his lap and got the point across – I’M INTERESTED. We’ve been dating ever since. I even changed my Facebook status to “In a relationship” which is about as official as it can get.

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Submitted for publication in The Greeley Citizen.