My Story

I'm out of blog material lately and a little bit of a copy cat, so when I saw my friend June's lovely and touching post about how she met her and married her husband, Sean, I felt compelled to tell my own story. Happy Valentine's Day, right? Here goes.

I once met a Rogue named Mandelas. Ben hates when I start the story this way - he probably feels like it's tacky, or geeky or like others wouldn't understand. Perhaps he's right, but these are my feelings, and for me, the story begins in a dungeon called Shattered Halls with a Rogue named Mandelas. Mandelas is a World of Warcraft character played by Ben, who happened to be the apartment-mate of Kevin, a friend of mine from Northeastern University. I had met Kevin a couple of years previously via my ex, Matt. Kevin and I had grown pretty close because of a love of video games and my blueberry apple crisp, and when he found out I was taking a term off from Bennington College to live in Boston and take classes at BU, he invited me over to dinner (ie: he wanted me to cook and do the dishes) at his apartment. The apartment he shared with Ben.

I had heard of Ben before, and I had "met" him, if meeting someone online in World of Warcraft is considered "meeting". That was September. I remember some of the first times "hanging out" with him. The dungeon run where I first met him, and Kevin introduced him as "my roommate who's just coming back to the game after a long break". I made a fool of myself in that run, and won't ever forget it. Then it was October. Kevin formed a guild, and I got to "see" and "hang out with" Ben a lot more. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, in fact. This was over three and a half years ago now. It's amazing how much personality comes out in a game - Ben was quiet, but a good player. He was a jokester. He was generous. When we chatted, it was the chatter of people who know what the word "egregious" means, and know how to use it in a sentence. Then it was late October. A big group of us got together in Boston at Northeastern. I met Ben for the first time in person. He was cute, quiet and had a sort of detached personality. He smiled a lot at people's jokes, but didn't say much. He filled up his plate in the dining hall, but only ate half of it.

Autumn passed and Winter came. Many people - though perhaps not many who read this blog - know that I was "on and off" dating my high school boyfriend, Matt. We were "officially" broken up at the time, but our tumultuous relationship was still present in my life. December was upon me, and I was horribly upset with my relationship (or, I should say, lack thereof) with Matt. January came. Kevin (as I mentioned above) asked me over to cook dinner, something I used to do quite often when he was roommates with Matt a year before. I brought a big bag of groceries over to their shoddy Boston apartment and cooked tomato sauce, meatballs and pasta in their tiny, awful kitchen. We sat around a table dragged into the hall because there was no living room. Ben was full of calm and quiet. I told stories about Bennington. He kept winking at me, making me wonder what that could possibly mean.

I learned he was a civil engineer. I learned he was on his co-op, inspecting bridges at night for a small company in Boston. He had a hammock in his room. He had the first and second seasons of "The OC" in his closet. He slept on an air mattress. He loved shepard's pie, but made it with too much salt. He was very reserved. I asked Kevin if he had a girlfriend. Kevin said he didn't.

Later that month, he messaged me on World of Warcraft. He asked me how to cook a whole chicken - he had bought one on-sale at the store and had no idea what to do with it. I offered to come over that night and help. We ate chicken on the floor of Kevin's bedroom. I went over to their place a few more times. I said I loved the movie "Casino Royale", so one of the nights, we bought a pint of Ben and Jerry's at the convenience store and watched "Casino Royale". We both sat on his bed - the air mattress on the floor - and watched the movie on his computer monitor. I was a little interested in him, and half hoped he would make a move during the movie, but he didn't. I had no idea if he was interested in me at all.

February came, and the night before Valentine's Day, as Midnight approached, we found ourselves both on World of Warcraft, doing not much of anything. He offered to help me with a task. I accepted. He ran around killing all the enemies in the area while I gathered some items I needed. When we were done, we sat together on top of a tall mushroom and later on a statue of a cobra. It was quiet and cute and immensely comforting. It was after Midnight when I signed off, and I wished him a Happy Valentine's Day. Before I logged off, I sent him a little heart in the game that said, "I will follow you all around Azeroth". It was an inside joke. I found out later that he still has that heart in his character's bank. A few days later, I got some in-game mail back from him. The subject of the mail was "Happy Birthday" (my birthday wasn't for another 9 months), and attached to the letter were a bunch of the items I needed. I was touched - the items were hard to get, and would have netted him a large profit had he chosen to sell them instead. That he sent them to me meant a lot.

Frankly, I was a little baffled. Although he had done these nice things for me, he treated me rather offhandedly and was incredibly hard to read. I was a little baffled at myself, too - Ben was not at all my type. Tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, when I normally go for shorter guys, with darker hair. It was clear he lived pretty cheaply - a room in a crappy apartment with an air mattress for a bed and virtually no other furniture? - whereas I grew up with money and with friends who had money. But he was smart, and quietly charming, and Kevin said nice things about him. Even the complete strangers in our World of Warcraft guild liked him.

Almost a week later, right past the middle of February, Kevin invited me into Boston to get sushi with him. When we were about to leave his apartment, Ben decided to come with us. It was snowing hard out, and I was walking down the street between the two of them. I remember looking out the window at the restaurant watching the snow and thinking, "My life is about to change." I still think back on that moment and realize I will probably never have a truer premonition. After dinner, we went back to their apartment. The three of us watched "Blood Diamond". After that was through, Ben and I watched "The Postman". By the time it was over, it was 11:55pm. We looked at each other hesitantly. "I think the trains may have stopped running by now," I said. Ben agreed. He invited me to spend the night. He only had one pillow. We stayed up most of the night talking. Nothing happened between us, but it didn't matter. We got along really well, and he was cute. I stayed the next night, too, not sleeping much from being up late with friends and being squished on the air mattress that was now being shared with both Ben and Owen, another friend.

That morning, I had a huge fight with Matt. Although we were not officially together in any way (because, mind you, he didn't want to be) and even though absolutely nothing had happened between me and Ben, Matt was angry and jealous at me for staying the night there. We fought and we talked and fought and talked. I knew that he had a point, but near the end of our conversation, he forbid me to see Ben again. That did it. There was no way anyone was going to tell me who I could or couldn't see. I told him we were through, and left. Matt and I had been "on and off" for about four years. He was my best friend, and I was deeply in love with him. Saying those words, and dealing with the repercussions of that "break up" for months (years?) after, was heartbreaking. I could write an entire novel about my relationship with Matt - and it would include all the good, bad, touching, sad, joyful, heartbreaking and life-changing things you find in most long term relationships. But this story isn't about Matt. Suffice it to say that the break up sucked, and Ben was extremely nice about the whole thing, for a long time after I even still had a right to be upset and crying about Matt at 2 in the morning.

So, I was devastated and confused. I had just broken up with someone who many people thought I might marry, and I sort of liked a guy whose feelings about me were a complete mystery. I held up for a while, but at the beginning of March, I did what any normal person would do - I took off a couple of days off from work to think, ordered expensive take-out, and planned to go skiing on a Saturday up at Mount Snow by myself for some "me" time.

As Fate would have it, I found out that Ben and some friends (including the very same Sean I mentioned at the beginning of this post) were planning a ski trip for that day, themselves - to Mount Snow. Well okay, I thought. That doesn't mean I have to see anyone. It's a huge mountain, and I'll never find them anyway. It snowed the night before, and the roads sucked. Most of the way up route 2, I called Ben to see if they had actually decided to go and see if they were okay on the roads. They had, and they were. Feeling a little awkward and nervous, I complained idly about a white truck that was slowing down traffic up ahead of me. Ben commented that they were in front of a slow, white truck. Out of all the places on the almost-four-hour trip from Boston to Dover, VT, we had ended up in the same 1/4 mile stretch.

The ski day was fun, although not the "me" time I had planned - long chairlift rides during which to talk, fresh snow from the storm the night before, sharing Sean's granola bars at lunch. When we were leaving, Owen suggested that Ben ride home with me to keep me company, since they had come up with three people. We listened to a CD I had made the night before while sorting out my feelings about everything. I got pulled over in Vermont for not moving into the passing lane to avoid a pulled over vehicle. I only got a warning, but I was beyond embarrassed. When I dropped him off at his apartment in Boston, I asked if I could drop my car off at home and come back over. He agreed. Although I had no hard evidence either way, by this time, I was fairly certain he was interested in me, too.

When I got back to his place, he made french toast for dinner. I didn't even really like french toast, but my appetite had just mysteriously returned after being gone since the breakup and that french toast was the best thing ever. We talked about World of Wacraft, but eventually relaxed and talked about ourselves. Then our feelings. Then we kissed for the first time. We started officially dating almost a month later. Now it's just about three years later, and I'm a completely different person than who I was then.

Ben is quiet, reserved, calm and introspective in a way that's toned my own melodrama and sometimes manic personality. He is very sweet and almost never gets angry. He hates when I don't communicate to him what I want, so I've tried to become clearer about my desires. He tries very hard in our relationship, which makes me try, too. (Don't ever let anyone tell you that you shouldn't have to try to make a relationship work. You will have to try, but it should be worth every moment of trying.)

The summer after we got together was rough. I was still dealing with my breakup. He had a friend staying with him the whole summer. I was needy. He hated it. We fought. Somehow, we got through. That Fall, I went back to Bennington and only came to Boston some weekends. It was difficult. That winter, we moved in together. Things, startlingly enough, got easier. We got two kittens - Loki and Penelope. They are the best, and have probably brought us together even more. The following summer, Ben went to The Netherlands for over a month. It was hard being alone after living with someone for half a year.

I don't believe in things like love at first sight or soul mates. What Ben and I have is a quiet sort of love. The kind of love that makes you impulsively hold hands on the way to the car and say "I love you" or "you're handsome" at random times. The kind of love that makes you curl up together for a weekend and play Fable III. The kind of love that isn't expressed with fireworks or Hollywood drama, but instead with long car rides together, grocery shopping on the weekends, bowls of freshly cut fruit, cooking dinner together, debates about social issues and science, sharing books, loving our cats, summer evenings in Boston, glasses of red wine. Sharing life with Ben isn't effortless, but it is easy and graceful. To use Ben's civil engineering parlance, "we shore each other up", and the changes we've made for each other (I think) are changes for the better.

Yesterday, for Valentine's Day, we went to an expensive lunch in Hingham. We appreciate good food, and always go out for special occasions. Ben planned it and surprised me, probably because I still complain that he should be more romantic. He wanted to take me to see "Black Swan". As sweet as that was, I knew he wouldn't like it. We went to the bookstore instead. When we got home, we played Fable, until it was time to go play World of Warcraft. Our days are simple - filled with work, books, cats, trips around town and to New Hampshire, and plenty of comforting routine. They are pretty perfect.