Wonderful Michael.........although I do find it incredulous that an asshole such as yourself found two wonderful women! LOL......seriously, you have been truly blessed.
Ebbie.......I was 36 and happy to go along with short term relationships (read: one-nighters). I had some great female "buddies" but I had long ago given up on the idea of any real relationship. I had one cardinal rule though......no blind date set-ups. People seem to have a need to fix up those who are happy being single and I was very happy being a bachelor!
I was doing some sales training for a friend with a new business and one of his people was a woman about my age named Charlene. I was in my office one day and feeling awful just recovering from the flu. Charlene comes in and obviously sensing weakness asks, "Would you like to meet a really nice girl?" I always feared that phrase as it could mean anything but in most cases "really nice" meant something was horrifically wrong with them. I said no but tried to be nice about it. Charlene continued that this was her husband's daughter bringing up another red flag and I ask how old she was. Charlene realized I was backing away but told me she was 27 (her husband was 50 so I felt better about the 27 year old daughter). Charlene then proceeded to ramble on about this "Karen" for 15 minutes and all I could think was, "How do I get her the hell outta' here?" Finally I agreed to meet them at an Italian place where we often had a few after the business day was over.
What I really figured also was that I could probably get out of this one before the day came along. I had done a good job training Charlene and she kept following up on her sale. I had taught Charlene how to use a sword and now I was getting stabbed with it! I asked another friend to come along so we could leave, setting up a fake appointment which we had to be to at 6. So at 4:30 we all get together in the bar at Joe Rigatoni's.
Twenty minutes later I was absolutely positive that this was the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Now the problem was ditching the chaperones who showed no interest in leaving even after I kept telling Everette to go to the "appointment" without me. They finally left and we went on til the wee hours just talking. We went to a Braves game two nights later the agrees to meet to watch some old movies (a mutual interest) a few nights later. On that night I said I didn't want to watch movies and I wanted to talk about marriage. Without a word she smiled and gave me an unexpected kiss. Late that night after seeing friends and telling them of our plans we wound up at a Denny's at 3 AM. She reminded me I hadn't technically proposed so over an English Muffin I asked and she accepted never realizing what a dumbass mistake she was making.