Every year Deloitte holds national training in Scottsdale, Arizona. So last January all of the first year staff from every office in the country flew to Scottsdale for four days of training. In an effort to help you “network” they always place you with a roommate from a different office, and they arrange each of the professionals in a breakout group of about 50 people, from all different offices, for the actual classroom trainings. Now anyone who knows me, knows I’m not usually immediately attracted to someone. I’ve always dated people I’ve been friends with first, and I’ve never really been all that interested in a complete stranger before. But I noticed Daniel immediately. I even surprised myself at how instantly interested I was in him; this had never happened to me before. The instructor made us do some sort of 3rd grade activity where we had to make a poster about ourselves and then present it, and while presenting my poster Daniel blurted out a question about whether I “only visited Italy”, and when I realized it was him who asked it, I froze. I was actually at a loss for words (and if you know me, you KNOW that’s saying something). So that was it: he had apparently noticed me to.
So we spent the next two days trying to not let the other one catch us staring at each other. Finally around Wednesday we actually started talking on our breaks, which turned into us exchanging numbers and planning to get everyone from all of the different offices together to go out on our last night in Scottsdale. So we coordinated so that everyone would meet up at the same bar and after about 30 minutes of pretending like we cared about talking to everyone else at the bar, we finally ended up at the same table and spent the rest of the night hanging out.
When we arrived back at the hotel later, I still wanted to hang out with him, so I texted him to see if he was still up. He said that he was about to go pay his hotel bill and then go to bed, which I took to mean that he was tired and wanted to take care of his hotel bill and go to bed (silly me). In actuality he was already in bed when I texted him, so he made some lame excuse to his roommate about how he thought he should go take care of the bill, got up out of bed, got redressed and headed for the lobby in an effort to act like he had a purpose so we could conveniently meet up. Meanwhile, I’m thinking he doesn’t really want to hang out, so I just sent him something along the lines of “alright, well have a good night” sighed, and took my shoes off. Hilarious.
The next day we had our closing session, and then we ate lunch together, chatted until we had to take off for the airport and said goodbye.
On Monday morning we started talking on Deloitte’s intercompany instant messenger, and when I left for Italy the following week we kept talking via facebook messages at every possible opportunity I had to borrow someone’s laptop for the next 10 days. The night I got home was Superbowl Sunday, and Daniel spent half the game outside talking on the phone with me (talk about a sacrifice..). After that we started talking all day long on instant messenger, and every night on the phone. After a few weeks Daniel started dropping some not so sudden hints that he wanted to come out and visit me. Obviously we can’t continue talking all the time and not see if something is actually there when we’re together in person, but inviting someone you’ve barely hung out with more than once to stay with you for an entire weekend takes some big cajones. Good thing I’ve got ‘em. Daniel flew out in February, for what just so happened to be Valentine’s Day weekend and then I decided to fly out to Houston two weeks later to visit him for his birthday. (Might I add that I totally and unexpectedly fell in love with Houston on my first visit, which ended up working out quite well for everyone, if I do say so myself).
So that was it. Daniel and I flew back and forth to visit one another every few weeks, and although Daniel offered to move to California with me, I loved Texas and decided to up and move to Houston. I asked my office for a transfer, and by the end of July I was on my way to Texas. I packed up my apartment into a moving truck and shipped all of my belongings ahead of me, Daniel flew out to California to meet me, and we drove my little 1989 Camry all the way from Orange County, California to Houston, Texas (without even overheating once!)
So now I live in Houston, I work for Deloitte’s Houston office and I’m engaged to the only man that’s ever really turned my head. Isn’t it funny how life works sometimes?
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Cute picture of you knuckleheads :)
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