How They Met. David Friedman

      Anne sang the concert and went to the reception where she sat at a table next to Montego Glover, who was one of the other Broadway stars on the bill, and chatted with a group of lovely people who were sitting with them. Out of the corner of her eye, Anne noticed a gentleman, with a woman with him, approaching her . . .Anne remembers thinking, “Oh, he’s so handsome. Obviously he’s with his wife. The good ones are always taken!”

      As the man got to the table, he leaned forward and said to both Anne and Montego, “I just wanted to tell you what a fantastic performance both of you gave. You were terrific: you lifted everybody’s spirits.” He then looked directly at Anne and said, “Are you single?” Kind of taken aback, Anne said, “Yes.” To which he said, “Do you have a boyfriend?” to which Anne said, “No.” To which he said, “How do I apply for that position?” To which Anne said, “Well, why don’t you sit down and I’ll see if I’m taking applications.”

      Montego, being an actress who knew how to take a cue, immediately stood up, said, “I have to go make a phone call,” and left the table, leaving her seat vacant for the gentleman to sit down.

      So he sat down and they began to chat. Anne explained to him that she would be leaving shortly because she needed to get home, since she had a daughter at home and was a single parent with a two-hour drive. He said, “Promise me that you will save me a dance before you leave,” to which Anne said, “Absolutely.” He then went on to say that he would love to get together and asked whether Anne would be open to having drinks or dinner or something. Anne explained that she was going to Dallas the following week to perform with Marvin Hamlisch again, but after that she would be home and yes, she would love to get together.

      Anne says that one of the first things she fell in love with was that when he took out his phone to take her number, being in his fifties, he was having trouble seeing the phone and was squinting trying to put her number in. She found it adorable.

      He took her phone number, and as he tells it, he didn’t know whether she was giving him the right number or not. But he gave Anne his phone number and asked her to let him know that she had arrived safely home when she got home that evening.

      They did have a dance, had a little more conversation, and then Anne said goodnight and drove home. By the time Anne arrived at home, there was a text from him saying, “Just wanted to make sure you got home safely,” to which she texted back saying, “Yes, I did. Thank you for checking.”

      The following week, when she arrived in Dallas for her concert, there was a large bouquet of flowers waiting for her in her dressing room. He had looked up Marvin Hamlisch’s concert schedule and found out where she would be performing.

      From his point of view, the reason he had been at the concert that evening was that the CEO of Johnson & Johnson was on the board of the university where he worked, so he had been there to support him. He had come without a date (the woman walking with him had nothing to do with him, she just happened to be there at the same time), he was sitting at a table with his board members and their spouses, and he was saying, “I really would love to meet this girl.” The people at his table said, “Well, what are you going to do? Are you just going to walk up there?” And he said, “Yeah, I’ve got one shot, to just walk up there and say something. Otherwise, what am I going to do? Email her later and say, ‘I was sitting in Row G, Seat 5, did you notice me?’ ”

      So he took a shot, and Anne thought it was very interesting because she had quit dating, and she remembered a friend had said to her years before, when she was still online dating, “Anne, you’re not going to meet someone online. You’re going to be like in the line at Starbucks. That’s how you’re going to meet someone. It’s going to be something completely random.”

      And her friend was right. Anne wasn’t even going to go to this thing, and there he was.

      The week after Anne got back from Dallas, they had their first date, a dinner at the Bedford Post Inn, and it was magical. It was definitely different than any of the dates she had had, and Anne remembers telling her girlfriends, “This one feels different.”

      In retrospect, Anne is grateful that she had all the experiences of dating men who were not quite right so she could tell the difference.

      Anne and Don were married a year and a half after their first meeting.

      All because she said yes to something she would have said no to, and because he had the desire and the guts to risk embarrassment and rejection and go after what he wanted.

I will NEVER Marry Another Actor

      Marsha, an actress previously married to an actor who, as she put it, was “the poster child for why you don’t want to marry an actor,” had made a deal with a friend that if he took the acting class she was leading, she would take the acting class he was leading.

      The first day of class, Marsha was clear that the last thing she was looking to find was a date in a theater full of actors. She had been married to one egomaniacal actor, and was not about to make that mistake again!

      The class was great, and Marsha did notice one actor she thought was the cutest guy in the room. But that observation was purely aesthetic, since she was not looking for a hookup.

      She would later find out that John (the cute guy) had thought she was a cute little Jewish girl. She was, in fact, a cute little Spanish girl, but “two out of three ain’t bad.”