My previous longest romantic relationship lasted only 13 months, ending crappily just as I left college in Missouri and moved to Arkansas. For the next few years — though I had plenty of friends, several relationships, and plenty of mind-expanding experimentation — I was extremely lonely. None of the people I dated fit me. Most of those relationships hurt more than they helped.

I didn’t realize it then, but I was undergoing a major paradigm-shift in my belief system and worldview. Only later did I come to understand that this gradual restructuring of my perspective was at least partially responsible for the failure of some of those relationships. (I discuss that journey elsewhere.)

Once I realized I would likely survive my 20s, I spent some time trying to “find myself”. This included cutting off the most toxic of my friends and eventually moving once more (this time to Seminole, Oklahoma). I still didn’t know what or who I was supposed to be, but I knew I wouldn’t find out while hopping from one casual relationship to another.

My loneliness only increased after moving to Oklahoma. I identified a “math problem” on the romantic side of things. It was simple: there were only 25,000 people in Seminole County. Half of them were men. Half of the women were either too old or illegally young. (We’re down to about 6,000 already.) Of those women who were eligible age-wise, most were married, divorced, significantly attached, already had multiple children, or some combination of the above. The small number remaining evaporated quickly once I subtracted the overly-religious, the mindless partiers and drug addicts, and other deal-breakers. The final handful I considered “eligible” were either unattractive or unacctracted to me, leaving me with a total of ZERO.

I tried a couple of internet flings (fun but unfulfilling), I concluded that I would remain alone for the rest of my life. This finally led me to get to know myself and be comfortable with myself. This turned out to be the key.

By that time, I was working for a newspaper and learning photography. I started a blog.

While holding onto a faint hope that “destiny” or “fate” might still have a romantic future in store for me, I wrote a blog entry in frustration, explaining how I just couldn’t seem to say or do the right things to fit in with the fairer gender. I added a picture of myself.

The combination of the post and the picture elicited two responses. One was from an old friend, saying, “Mmm... Love this pic.” The other was from a complete stranger, indicating that she felt the same way sometimes, and it ended with this line: “Oh and by the way if the above pic is of you, you’re really hot, so take comfort in your hotness for a moment and trust that in time you’ll find the right woman for you.”

Well. No email address or contact information was left with the comment, so I responded to it somewhat in my next entry, saying I would “think on these things”. That was Wednesday, July 27, 2005, at 00:10. By 13:00 that same day, I received an email from a young woman, saying she was the anonymous poster on my blog. Near the end of a short but grammatically correct message, she said: “But from one Virgo to another, rest assured that when the time is right and when you are ready you’ll find the one.” And she added a tiny picture into the email, from which I only learned two things: (a) she was cute, and (b) she was Black.

Her backstory: She had been following a stand-up comic named Christian Finnegan, whose promoter was my cousin. While browsing Finnegan’s blog, she clicked over to my cousin’s blog, where there was a link to my own blog (an entry with some fireworks photos). That led her to the entry mentioned above. I’ll never be more glad that I took fireworks pictures, or that Kambri was my cousin.

But what I learned most from the email was that she was intelligent, which immediately warmed my heart. So glad was I to receive an intelligent, caring reply from this cute young woman, that I wrote a carefully-worded response back to her later that afternoon, with the daring subject line: “Well, hello there, beautiful!”

I laughingly explained to her my “math problem”, and commented on the fact that our birthdays were but one day apart (plus nine years). I also complimented her writing, which was impressive to me in this day of badly spelled emails, internet shorthand, and general lack of knowledge about the English language. Nothing too overt.

Unknown to me, she did a little checking up on me (as every woman should when meeting a strange man on the internet), and found my About Me page on my website. Fortunately, I’d included enough about myself there that she felt comfortable in opening up a little more, and responded (still on July 27), with more about herself. Again, the email was well-worded, spelled correctly, and organized in an intelligent fashion. And she included another picture, this one with more pixels.

Still on the same night, I responded back, saying I was impressed. I promised to respond as soon as I had more time. About 17 minutes later, I sent her one of the longest emails I’d written in my life (nearly 2,000 words!) That was getting close to midnight. Being just a little tired, for some reason I grew bold and told her she was “gorgeous”. She was, of course, but I usually wouldn’t say that so early in getting to know someone. I figured, “What the heck. She can always just not respond. She’s too far away to slap me for being so forward.” But it turned out to be just the right thing to say.

Over the next few days, we emailed each other half a dozen times, each message getting longer and more detailed. We were polite and courteous to each other, yet suddenly began to feel like old friends as so much information was passed between us. Everything seemed to click. By Friday (July 29), she pushed the brand new relationship to another level with these words: “I was thinking I could call you sometime and we could talk.”

Wow. I wasn’t thinking about the cost of a long-distance call so much as I worried about where that would take us. Would we like each other’s voices? Would I sound too country for a New Yorker? She’d already told me that her accent was nearly non-existent with something of a “valley girl” hint, but I doubted it, to be honest. What could we say to each other that hadn’t already been said in our emails that seemed to resemble small encyclopedias? I grew nervous.

But she gave me her phone number. That showed a lot of trust, a lot of vulnerability. I couldn’t leave her hanging after such a magnanimous gesture. She’d even offered to call me, since she had free long-distance. So I gave her my number too.

Then came Saturday, when I was at work all day, and she was out at a friend’s wedding for most of the day. A day that we didn’t communicate by email, after so many since Wednesday. It was actually kind of weird.

But on Sunday, July 31, there was a message from her on my answering machine when I woke up. What to do? I felt like a 14-year-old boy, about to ask a popular girl to the homecoming dance. Nervous, shaky, unsure of myself. Do I call her? Do I send an email and say I’m not ready for that yet? What? I laugh at myself now, thinking of that feeling.

I drank a Dr. Pepper to help me wake up fully, and calmed my nerves.

And then I called. She answered quickly, saying she was at the laundromat, and would call me back in 10 minutes. She did. And since then, we’ve never gone a single day without talking to each other.

We talked for six straight hours on that first day, something that I’d never before done in my life with anyone. It was the longest phone conversation I could imagine, but it was never boring, always pleasant, and my ear ached like a son of a gun afterward. She loved my accent which is just barely southern, and I couldn’t get over the fact that she really did sound like a valley girl. She had interesting things to say, and she was interested in the things that I said.

Though our worlds were very different, we were both human beings and thus had something in common. And it turned out that we had much more in common than just our birthdays and our humanness.

At some point in the conversation, I’d mentioned that I would soon be taking a week off work. By the end of the conversation, she was asking pointed questions about how I’d be spending time on my vacation. I mentioned that a friend was coming from Arkansas. She asked how many days he would be staying. At that point, I realized what she was doing, but I didn’t make it easy for her. I said I wasn’t sure how many days he would be here, but that he would probably only stay for the first half of my vacation. I basically forced her to say out loud that she was already thinking of flying down to visit me. Because I didn’t want to seem like the perverted old guy who convinces the vibrant college student to come visit him. She said it. She said she wanted to come see me.

Within a day or so, I’d talked to my old friend and let him know he would only stay here until Aug. 17, and my new friend had booked tickets to fly down on the 18th.

She and I continued to talk on the phone every day throughout the next two weeks of work, and even while my friend was here, though some of those conversations were short. Each night I stayed up late and wrote emails to he. I emailed more pictures and videos to her.

My friend, who’d been present in Arkansas during some of my less proud moments, urged me to be cautious and take my time. Good advice, but unnecessary this time.

From the first moment I saw her, coming down the escalator in Will Rogers World Airport, I knew things would be all right. Those first few moments, I was still nervous, as we collected her baggage and made our way outside into the August Oklahoma sun, and I still had to concentrate on city driving for the next little bit as I wanted us both to arrive in Seminole safely.

But I had nothing to be nervous about. We fit together like (insert really good simile here). It worked. The timing was right. We were made for each other. There were no instances, for me, during those next few days, when I doubted that she was “the one” for me, though I hesitated to say it. Afterall, I’d had my heart broken before and done my share of heart-breaking. It didn’t take long, however, for those old scars to weaken and fall away as this enthusiastic, brilliant, beautiful, energetic woman clung to me, entering my life fully.

That hole in my soul? I quickly concluded that this woman would fit specifically into that space. Her personality is not like mine; that much is certain. But it’s the exact personality that I needed (and still need). Her previous life experience is not like mine either, something that I also needed. Her perspective on things is different too, which is wonderful and eye-opening. Not only is she kind enough to listen to my varying and sometimes rambling opinions, but she’s strong enough and smart enough to successfully counter me when I’m incorrect or mistaken, or when we simply disagree. I could easily go on for another ten thousand words about how well we fit together, but at some point my readers will be bored to tears, or sickened by the gushy emotions presented. So I’ll stop here. You get the point.

Anyway, she came back to Oklahoma two weeks later, and then again in October. For two weeks in December, she was here again, the most wonderful Christmas season I can remember. In January, she visited me again, for another wonderful weekend. By March 2006, it was my turn to fly, and I visited The Bronx and the rest of New York City with her as my guide.

Then came our longest stretch apart. Two and a half months passed before she flew into Oklahoma on May 31. Hopefully, we’ll never be apart that long again.

That’s “The Story of Us”. I hope you like it. Have a wonderful day, and may all your dreams come true, just like mine.