So this is the story of how I met your mother. Unfortunately I am not as near as attractive as Neal Patrick Harris – which is fortunate for all my biological children. This is not a story book romance. This is more of a normal story about how a boy, completely encumbered by self-doubt, low self-esteem, and difficulty in fitting in with people found a girl who could look past all of that and hang out with him… and subsequently fall in love. It is not a short story at all since it has now encompassed 19 years. It was not easy, nor does it fit any sort of Hollywood mold. If this gets turned into a movie I am sure that many unbelievable turns of events will have to be added to make it palatable to the modern movie-going audience. But this is the real story. Note: I’m listening to T-Swizzle, who will always remain, in my sick twisted and completely stuck in outer space mind, as my next ex-wife. Because I’m broken. And my beautiful and wonderful wife still loves me. This is a love story.
In 1997 I was a student at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. I was tall, skinny, awkward, and relatively unmotivated. You see, I had failed out of college about a year prior, joined the Army, and ended up on the west coast of the United States. I had suffered through a relatively easy bout of basic training and wound up at DLI. I had maybe one or two people I called “friends” and I still don’t know if they considered me friends at the time. Now I think they do but since I haven’t seen either of them in person in a decade I can’t be sure. The lack of friends will be a recurring theme in this little narrative.
Unrelated to friends, I was struggling in language school. When I joined the Army I knew I was going to go to Monterey. I had done a tiny bit of research and chosen a job that I knew would bring me to Monterey but I had no clue what it would do for me. I wanted to learn Arabic or Russian and definitely not an Asian language. Due to my lack of planning, lack of research, and lack of anything that resembled the cognition associated with my desires I ended up learning Korean. When I found out that I was going to learn Korean I literally said, “Korea? We fought a war there once.” Yeah, I was ignorant. I was also less than diligent in my studies and despite my crush on my instructors (Ms. Moon and Ms. Choi I’m looking at you…) I was failing. Background: failing out of language school means that you become subject to “needs of the Army”. Somehow, despite my ignorance, I knew that I didn’t want to become subject to the needs of the Army – something about being a truck driver didn’t appeal to me (not that there is anything wrong with driving trucks for the Army, I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do that at the time). So, in order to avoid driving trucks for the Army I decided to… *gasp*… study. I also had designs on meeting a girl. Let’s talk about me and girls.
Me and girls weren’t really compatible. In high school I was rejected by over 13 girls… in a row. At Monterey I had equal success, although I was coming off a not-unsuccessful try at meeting and hanging out with a girl. I had met a nice Mormon girl who was out in Monterey for the summer but she had left the peninsula. She sent me cookies because she was truly a nice girl but that relationship wasn’t going anywhere because distances were hard for me – at the time. She was in Utah and I was in Monterey and there were many miles between us – and I didn’t have a car. Since I was stuck, and failing language school, I was kind of hoping that studying at the local coffee shop would raise my profile a bit and allow me to meet the girl of my dreams. Nothing attracts young, rich, beautiful women like a skinny, awkward, self-conscious man who lacks confidence quietly studying alone in the front of a coffee shop on a weekend in a city populated by old rich people. Right?
So there I was. Sipping my chai latte reading my Korean text books splitting my time between writing Korean phrases with poor syntax and furtively glancing around at the other patrons, of which there were none. A young Asian girl walked in and sat down on the other side of the coffee bar and I got a little bit of tightness in my chest. I knew she was Asian because I have eyes but I had no idea which flavor of Asian. Japanese? Chinese? Thai? Korean? A mix of one of those two? I had absolutely no idea so I continued to try and study but I was failing. Remember, I was a REALLY BAD STUDENT. Eventually the girl left her seat at her table and disappeared into the recesses of the bathroom. I knew this was my chance and I quickly spring into action as I walked past her table and noticed her hand lotion and a notebook. A gold mine, but not really. The only really important information that I garnered was that the hand lotion had Korean writing on it. Thanks DLI, you taught me to identify Hangul – what useful skill. That’s what $100,000+ worth of training will get you. In an uncharacteristically bold move I decided to act. I wrote what was probably the poorest worded offer to buy a cup of coffee that has ever been written in the history of the Korean language – and pick-up lines as a whole.
I was mortified. You see, my Midwest upbringing taught me that asking a girl if she wanted a cup of coffee was akin to asking her to conduct unspeakable sexual acts. I argued to myself between using the word “drink” or“coffee” for about minute. “Drink” could be misinterpreted to indicate something not exactly appropriate in a coffee shop, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how to properly spell “coffee” in Hangul. If I was wrong I could accidentally write “nose blood”, and what kind of freak would offer a young presumably Korean girl a warm cup of bloody nose refuse. I opted for “drink” despite the *obvious* connotation toward sexual congress – such a pervert. I scribbled the note onto a post-it, stuck it on her notebook, and retreated to my window seat in the corner and desperately stared at my homework as she returned to her seat.
A note on the environment: There were three people in Plume’s Coffee Shop that day. Me, the Barista (or whatever they are called outside of Starbucks), and this as yet unidentified presumably Korean girl.
I was watching out of the corner of my eye as this girl sat down at her table, saw the post-it note, and got a distinct tightness in my chest as she looked up from her table and intently stared around the coffee shop, looking for the offending party that had clearly entertained the idea of anal sex via sticky note. With disdain evident in her voice she spoke to me in perfect English, “Did you write this?” My heart sank, I struggled to lower myself into the faux-wood tile of the restaurant. Surely she had to be talking to someone else – but that couldn’t possibly be true. She was talking to me and there was no denying it. I had offended this girl – the obvious resident of the peninsula. I had strived mightily to introduce myself and had brought shame and disgrace on my family, the entire history of the U.S. Army, all Soldiers past and present, and every man who has ever tried to make an introduction to a woman in a coffee shop ever. I was lower than low. I don’t remember what exactly I said in response but it was pitiful.
