Ron surreptitiously began to glance up at the man, trying to find things he didn’t like about him. Didn’t like the shoes. Didn’t like the tie. He said nothing to the man—he was just too unnerved at the thought of talking to this stranger on the subway—but something kept drawing the two of them together. He was on the local train, and at 34th Street he thought he heard the conductor announce that the train was now going express. He had been told to take the local train, so he got off the train. (Actually, he was going to 14th Street, which would have been the next express stop, but he got confused about directions and thought he needed to get off.) He was standing on the platform and he noticed that the man had gotten off too. Then he heard the conductor announce that the next stop was 28th Street, which meant that the train actually was a local, so he got back on. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the man had gotten back on too. (Again, the fascinating thing about this is that Lars has no memory of following Ron or cruising him or anything. He was just going about his business, not even noticing where Ron was.)
At 14th Street, both men got off the train, Ron stood on the platform trying to figure out which exit he should go to, and the man went toward an exit at the end of the platform. As Ron was standing there he saw the man turn around . . . the exit he was going toward was closed, and the man was heading toward Ron on his way to the other exit. As the man passed Ron, something made Ron reach into his pocket, grab his business card, hand it to the man and say, “Call me.” The man said nothing, did not give Ron his number, just took the card and kept walking.
Even though Ron was still in his relationship, for some reason he was very excited. The next day he came into work and asked his secretary if anyone had called. The secretary said, “Yes, Bob called.” “Bob,” thought Ron. “Hm. That’s a nice name. Could it be him?” Ron asked, “Did you get his number?” and the secretary said, “He didn’t leave one.” Ron went into a whole tirade, saying, “How could you not get his number?!” The secretary looked so taken aback at this outburst that Ron, who had never shared any of the details of his personal life with his secretary, told her the whole story. She was very intrigued and into it, but informed him that she hadn’t gotten Bob’s number because it was Bob, their accountant from downstairs, who had called.
For the next five days, both Ron and his secretary waited anxiously for a call from the mystery man. The call never came.
Ron’s relationship dragged on. They were in couples counseling and Ron even brought up the mystery man in a session, but there was such a sense of inertia and settledness in their relationship that it didn’t even seem to ruffle his partner. Over the next year and a half, the relationship continued to drag on, but clearly there was nothing left of it and only familiarity and a sense of “nowhere else to go” were keeping them together.
Ron left his job and moved to another one. A year and a half after the subway encounter, Ron’s secretary from his old job got a call. “Hello, this is Lars, is Ron there?” “I’m sorry, Ron doesn’t work here anymore,” was her reply. “Thank you,” Lars said, and was ready to hang up. Now this was a government agency and their policy was not to give out forwarding numbers of employees who had left. But the secretary had remembered the story of the mystery man on the subway, and even though Lars had said nothing to indicate that he was that mystery man from a year and a half ago, the secretary said, “Would you like the number where Ron works now?” Lars, after hesitating, said, “Okay.” Ron was sitting at work when the phone rang.
When Ron answered the phone, he heard a voice on the other end say, “This is Lars, I’m the man you gave your card to on the subway a year and a half ago.” Now Ron knew that quite a few friends of his knew about the subway incident and he assumed someone was pulling his leg. “Oh, helloooo Laaaars,” he said in an extremely sarcastic voice. But when Lars began to talk to him and related things about the incident that only Lars could have known, Ron realized he was really talking to the guy. “What took you so long to call?” Ron asked. Actually, Lars had at first not wanted to call because he assumed that he wouldn’t be interested in a guy who makes a habit of giving his business card out on the subway. He’d then lost the card and was cleaning out some things and found it in a box. His friends had been pressuring him to be more aggressive in looking for a boyfriend . . . he’d been single for a while, doing a bit of casual dating but nothing serious, and his friends were warning him that if you remain single too long it becomes a way of life and your relationship muscles shrivel up and atrophy. So when he found the card, he figured he’d go through the motions and take the initiative, even though it seemed ridiculously unlikely that it would lead to anything.
Lars was shocked that Ron even remembered him, thinking that Ron must give out his card on the subway all the time, but as they talked, he realized that Ron had never done such a thing before or since. They talked for forty minutes and at the end, Lars gave Ron his home number, his work number, his address, and his cell phone number. Ron said, “Well, you have my work number” and left it at that. Now Lars was paying attention, so he said, “Something is strange here. Are you involved with someone?” “Well, sort of.” said Ron. “Well, if you ever become totally available, give me a call.” was Lars’ reply. A few weeks later, Ron and his boyfriend finally decided to split up. Ron actually called his former boyfriend, the one who was older and very successful, and asked if he could use the empty apartment he kept in New York. (The ex-boyfriend had moved to L.A.) His ex said fine, and Ron moved out of the apartment he was in and into this one. The first call he made was to Lars.
Lars spent about two weeks having long conversations with Ron, making sure that he would not just be a rebound relationship. They then got together, and the rest is history. They’ve been partners for the last thirty years.
Oh, and by the way, the list Ron had placed on his refrigerator years before . . . described Lars to a tee.
It Took Five Disasters to Bring Them Together
Without the simultaneous occurrence of five disasters, Rene and Peter would have never gotten together. Rene had spent several years caring for her ailing father who was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Shortly after he died, her mother developed the same disease. Rene, who had been single for a long time, was the only child really in a position to give up her life as she knew it and care for her mother. After several years during which Rene spent most of her time shuttling between her home in New York, her mother’s homes in Florida and New Jersey, and her brother’s home in Los Angeles, where her mother often stayed, Rene’s mother finally died.
The next day, when Rene picked up the phone to call one of her oldest and dearest friends, Penny, to tell her her mother had died, Penny informed Rene that she had just been diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma. Rene had always been a natural caretaker. In addition to taking care of both her dying parents she had also spent many years volunteering at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and continues to do so to this day. So even though her mother had just died, Rene volunteered to come to New Jersey to accompany Penny to all her chemotherapy sessions and help take care of her during her treatment.
While this was going on, Penny’s brother Peter was having his own problems. Peter lived in Florida, and after a fifteen-year marriage, his wife told him that she wanted a divorce. At the same time, in the course of a one-month period, two of Peter’s best friends committed suicide. Then Peter got the call that his sister had cancer. Like Rene, Peter volunteered to come up to New Jersey to take care of her.
Rene had known Peter slightly from high school, but basically she’d just known