Love and Pizza

So, I was driving home the other night after work - February 25 - listening to NPR, and segment on MarketPlace called "The Transaction" came on.  I don't know that I've heard this segment before, but it totally caught (and held) my attention.

This is a story about Marcos Menendez, a Pizza Hut delivery guy in El Paso, TX.  I'll summarize for you:  Marcos was delivering pizzas on a random Friday night, and his last delivery was to a house where a small kid grabbed the pizza from him at the front door, and a magnificently beautiful girl came to the door to pay for the pizza.  Marcos was immediately smitten, but feeling rather self conscious wearing his standard and frightfully unappealing Pizza Hut uniform.  He was speechless.  When he got back into his car he thought, "Man, I wish I had a girlfriend like her."

A few weeks later, Marcos' boss at Pizza Hut was getting married and his fiancé invited Marcos to the wedding.  The fiancé said to Marcos, "There's a friend, her name is Maru, you delivered a pizza to her home and she wants to meet you."

Seriously - this happened to Marcos.

Marcos went to the wedding, formally met Maru, and has now been married to her for 15 years.

This story is so sweet and touching and heart warming - I just loved it.  You never know where you will find love, how you will find it, or if you will find it.  Sometimes it just finds you!

You can read the full story here.  I suggest listening to the segment - hearing Marcos' voice tell his tale is even better.  It is 3 minutes 12 seconds - click the arrow icon at the top of the page.  I bet you'll love it too.

Pay it forward!

I'm on a roll tonight...  A friend of mine, Improv, has embarked on her on-line dating adventures.

She met a guy on Match.com late last year, and dated him for a few months.  She brought him along to my birthday picnic, and our little group of friends got the opportunity to meet him.  I'll call him Quiet-Passive-Aggressive of QPA for short.  He seemed nice enough, but didn't actually say much for the entire picnic.

Improv liked him and he seemed to like her.  He came (alone) to one of her improv shows, which was sweet.  We all liked him, but it was hard to get to know him.  He is super quiet and shy and awkward in social situations.  He would kind of stand off to the side and watch - a little voyeuristic (and border line creepy), in my opinion.

Improv and QPA were going out for several months, but then something changed.  He got more passive aggressive with her - he would only want to do what he wanted to do.  Any time Improv suggested something, and he didn't want to do it, he would say no, and then suggest something he wanted to do - with no attention paid to what Improv wanted to do.  Then he would get mad when Improv didn't want to do what he wanted to do.  Things went around in this little passive-aggressive circle for a while until Improv was over it.

She made dinner plans with him to cut him loose.  The conversation was brief, and when she was done telling QPA she was done with him, he had the balls to ask if Improv could set the stage for him to ask one of Improv's friends out.

Seriously.  QPA wanted Improv to pay him forward.  I'm all for paying things forward, even in the dating arena, but with QPA, ummmmm, No.  Bye bye.

Hello, my name is...

Yes, it's been a while...

I had lunch with PM last weekend and she was telling me that after her hiatus from on-line dating, she was inspired by a friend to go back on Tinder.  Her friend was showing her all of the guys she's been dating and talking about the good luck she's having.

PM got re-inspired and downloaded the app, and started swiping.  She came upon a guy who lives in Emeryville who is a teacher at the culinary academy in Napa.  He is age-appropriate and good looking - 2 positives.  PM decided that on this Tinder journey that she wouldn't be the one to reach out to anyone who was a match with her - she was going to put the ball in the guy's court.

So, PM matched with Cooking Teacher and he reached out.  They chatted through the app for a while, then switched to regular text (and texted for about 2 hours), then they had a phone call - and this was all taking place on one Saturday morning.  He asked her out - they were going to go bowling and dinner on Sunday (the following day) - this was arranged by text.  Then when they spoke on the phone later on Saturday morning, Cooking Teacher asked if PM would be opposed to going wine tasting and dinner in Napa - of course she wasn't opposed to that.

They spoke about what they are looking for (in terms of dating) and they both seemed to be on the same page - wanted to take things slow, not looking for a one night stand or a fling, etc. etc.  All good things!

I was super excited for PM for Sunday & her date with Cooking Teacher.  I was surprised when I got a text from her Sunday morning, "Too good to be true usually is.  Dude texted me last night but I was at dinner.  10 min after his last text I called him back (around 10pm), no answer, to VM.  This AM he unmatched me.  No word from him.  Text aren't being delivered.  Scam!  And this is why I am so skeptical.  Ugh."

Seriously, this shit is crazy.  If you are on a dating app, you usually have to go on dates.  People - stop screwing around and hijacking pictures of someone who you'd like to be in a perfect world and using them for your fake on-line profile.  All you are doing is selling yourself short and causing unnecessary pain and strife to good people who are just trying to meet a mate.  This is called Catfishing, and it needs to stop.

Catfish is a show on MTV, now in it's 5th season - so, yeah, this shit happens A LOT.  People - get a clue.  Be yourself.  Stop impersonating others.  Own who you actually are in REALITY.