I once moved 800 miles to a city where I had no job and didn’t know anyone besides my fiancé, a man with whom I had spent less than three weeks in person.
Marty lived in Fort Collins, Colo., I lived in Las Vegas, and we met on a trail in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, where both of us had gathered with friends. The trail was actually a steep, fast creek. Once you scrambled to the bottom, you needed a second car to retrieve the car left at the starting point. Our two groups each had one car, so we joined up at the top.
He was a physics professor with big brown eyes, long eyelashes, a shy grin. And his outfit matched mine! Same loose khaki shorts, brown pullovers, beige T-shirts, black hiking sandals. We started walking together, talking nonstop and ignoring our friends. Turns out we had been to some of the same mountains and knew some of the same people despite never having lived in the same state. We were familiar strangers.
I helped him at a steep spot when he stumbled, but he didn’t get embarrassed like many men would if they fell in front of a woman they were flirting with. Marty was just comfortably himself, including some clumsiness, which I think is remarkable, and rare.
At trail’s end, we sat close while our friends left to get the other vehicle. The desert was hot and silent around us. He smiled. I smiled and moved closer, thinking we should kiss, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he got in his group’s car and left, without asking for my number. Later, though, he tracked down my address and wrote me a letter.
My dating profile said I was over 30, worked as a field biologist, wanted a serious relationship, and loved children and hiking in remote places. Man after man had responded by saying they wanted a hot mountain honey like me for casual good times. None mentioned children and most seemed unfamiliar with the concept of hiking.
Marty’s letter said he had been reluctant to reach out for a potential relationship that would be long-distance but decided to anyway because he was amazed that two people who met randomly could connect so easily. Like me, he wanted children and a serious relationship.
He sounded great, but I was afraid to hope. I’d had plenty of disappointments involving men who started hot then cooled while I pined over them. The uncertainty kept me alert and determined to prove myself worthy of their love. I had also pushed away some good guys thinking I’d rather reject them first since any decent man would surely reject me once they knew my flaws. Such was my confidence.
But Marty’s letter! I read it again and again, then called.
“Well? How about it?” he said. He wanted me to visit.
His blunt delivery freaked me out, and I got scared and declined. I was accustomed to men who played games.
In the silence that followed, we might have hung up and ended contact right there, but we had liked each other when we met, and the phone was a safe space, so we restarted the conversation and began what would rapidly become a relationship.
Most couples say distance is a problem, but it helped us. We couldn’t see each other, be distracted by other activities or people or consumed by sex. We only had our voices, and a voice in a dark room at night with the phone pressed against your ear is intimate. At the same time, a phone can be a screen to hide behind whenever you feel too exposed.
We spilled secrets that would have been hard to tell face to face. I came clean about my recent breakup with my live-in boyfriend (we didn’t just “grow apart” but had screaming battles in which we said horrible, unforgivable things). Marty admitted that his ex had dumped him; it wasn’t mutual after all. We both said we were sick of pretending casual relationships were enough. We didn’t have to say we were lonely.
I tried telling myself this was only a phone thing, that I wouldn’t be heartbroken if it didn’t work out. But when he traveled to a friend’s wedding, it occurred to me that he might meet someone new there. My relief when he kept calling made me wonder how attached I was becoming to a man I’d only met once.
He never repeated his invitation to visit. Part of me went into a mild panic, even though I knew we were becoming more intimate, not less.
Anyway, when a man in Las Vegas asked me out on a day trip to the mountains, I said yes. Looking way older than his profile description, he huffed a few hundred yards up a hill, his lips turning slightly blue. When they became purple, I suggested we stop.
We ended up eating brunch at a mountain resort where the live band was several old men in lederhosen playing German polkas. This delighted my date but not me, and I’m grateful because the throbbing “oomp-oomp-oomp” of the tuba gave me the push I needed. It was time to go see Marty.
I called him and invited myself. (He later said he had wanted to ask me again but felt unsure after my first refusal; I’d been too lost in my own head to realize he also had anxieties.)
When I got off the plane with a pounding heart, there he was looking even sexier than I remembered and wearing the same sweat-stained sun hat he had worn on the trail. He grinned and pointed at it, hoping I would approve of his dorky “remember me?” gesture. I did.
The weekend was glorious and disorienting. We stayed at his house, which I thought needed a woman’s touch, maybe mine, although I was stunned to be thinking that way. We visited a national park where he forgot to bring his boots, and I forgot my jacket. Both of us forgot to eat several meals. We couldn’t stop smiling and touching. At the end of the weekend, he said he loved me.
I had learned that there are worse things than loneliness, like living with the wrong person where any innocent comment can spark a fight in which both parties rehash all the ways they’ve disappointed each other. My Vegas apartment was at least all mine, empty but peaceful.
Before I met Marty I had thought, despite my assertive dating profile, that singlehood might be best for me, providing a steady emotional life without giddy highs or ugly surprises. Marty, however, had been single for years and was more courageous.
I didn’t say I loved him back. This was basically our first date. But we became an official couple.
Our next weekend together was in Arizona, where we hung out in bed, hiked, held hands, practically purred with pleasure.
We parted at the airport, but I felt disappointed this time when I entered my tidy apartment. I already missed Marty, and it was time to stop resisting what my heart already knew; I wanted to be with him. I was hopelessly in love and fully vulnerable.
Just then, my phone rang. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Just thought I’d call to see if you got home OK.”
“I’m OK. How are you?”
“Fine.”
That was all. We agreed we would talk again tomorrow, unnecessary since we talked every day anyway. I knew he called because he missed me too and, unlike me, wasn’t afraid to admit it and act on it. I also understood he was the type of partner who calls to make sure you have arrived home safely after a trip, even a short one. No one had ever treated me so well.
We hung up and I stood perfectly still, making some decisions. I would be different this time; I wouldn’t push him away or become insecure. Instead, I would relocate to Colorado, treat him right, get married. I was 31 and finally able.
And that’s exactly what happened. We married that summer less than a year after our first phone call, in a mountain meadow surrounded by friends and family. Our 30th anniversary is coming up, and our children are grown.
Some people thought it couldn’t last, that getting married after a few short visits and some talking is crazy. But I believe the lack of time was irrelevant. Our meeting in Utah may have been pure luck, but everything we did after was as deliberate and honest as we could be under the circumstances. That’s the crucial part. Love is too important for anything less.
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