How We Met

He waved at me. 

Seriously. 

We were at one of those huge shopping-dining-entertainment complexes. Y'know, the really happening ones that turn into hunting grounds for single people on Friday and Saturday night? My best friend and I always went there on Thursday nights, but our schedules had not coincided that week so we'd postponed in until the next night. The place was very different on Thursday nights than it was that Friday night! We were not entirely prepared for the meat market our usual quite Thursday evening had become. After some time, a random guy started talking up my friend for a while, so I'd had to make myself busy. I stayed close by, but left her to talk to this guy, when all of a sudden this brown guy waves at me.

I'll be honest. I inwardly groaned. Here I was being waved at by some smallish, geeky looking, brown immigrant guy. I had never been attracted to an Indian guy before, and it certainly didn't start with that first wave. But, I wasn't rude! I waved back. 

He said Hi.

I said Hi.

He asked my name.

Then he mispronounced it. I had to coach him through it. Twice.

I asked where he was from. I was a young American girl - I had no idea what Pakistan was. (Except he hadn't said Pakistan, either.) So, I asked what his country's biggest export was. 

(Now who's the geeky one?)

We talked. And talked. And talked. Some of that was because we kept having to ask each other to repeat our sentences. He'd only been in the country from 2 years at that point, so his English wasn't all that great and he wasn't used to listening to some white girl talking so fast. (Before me, he'd never really spoken with all that many Americans, and never for very long. His school had an okay international population and he had a lot of Pakistani friends to escape to. )

So anyway, we talked a lot. We just stood there for over an hour just talking. My friend had already wrestled herself away from whoever had been talking to her and now SHE was waiting around for ME. For a long time! I finally told him I had to go and he asked what I was doing the next night. Unfortunately I already had plans with my friend to see a movie, so I told him that. He asked if he could come along. And that's how our first date got planned.

I remember thinking he was smart and funny. But I also remember that I was disappointed when he said he was a 27 year old student. I didn't know anything about Ph.D's and it just sounding like he was too old to still be in school without a job! And I wasn't really in love with the accent, either!