The writer with her husband, Marshall Norstein, and their son, Gabe. Photo by Marshall Norstein
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Your turnFebruary 14, 2008
I had been divorced and playing the dating game again for about five years when I asked a pair of happily married friends how they’d met. They confessed for the first time that they met through a personal ad in New York magazine, and not — as they’d always claimed — through friends. They urged me to go the ad route, too.
That evening, on my way home to my apartment in the West Village in Manhattan, I picked up a copy of New York Press. It also had personal ads, some with codes for taped voice messages. Skipping past all the other variations, I scanned the “Men Seeking Women” columns.
One in particular caught my eye: “Renaissance man, passionate about motorcycles, fine art and cooking.” It mentioned that he was “cuddly.” Like real estate ads, the personals have their own euphemisms; it meant he might be overweight, but that was fine with me. The breadth of his interests was more intriguing than his weight. He’d used none of the usual cliches about seeking a slender blonde for walks on moonlit beaches. Instead, this guy said he was looking for someone warm and affectionate, and interested in starting a family.
I picked up the phone and dialed the code for his voice message. There was this warm, mellifluous baritone one — a voice I hoped wouldn’t be baffled by my South African accent. With heart hammering, I called and left a message of my own, finishing with the words, “I’m also interested in starting a family.”
He called back the next day. Our first phone conversation lasted about an hour. We met in person a few anxious, excited days later. He turned out to be stocky, with a dark beard and brown eyes as warm as his voice. He took me out for dinner on his motorcycle to a little Japanese restaurant in the East Village.
We had a table by the window, and as we were eating, there was a tap on the glass. There was the friend who had persuaded him to place his newspaper ad, with her fiance — whom she’d met through an ad of her own. They came in to say hello. She told me months later that she knew by the grin on Marshall’s face that this was the one.
After our third date, I called my long-suffering parents in South Africa. I said to them, “Remember that guy I met through the personal ad? He’s really nice — and by the way, he’s Jewish.”
My father said, “So, you’ve got another boyfriend?”
I answered — knowing a skeptical glance would pass between him and my mother — “Yes, and he’s the last one.”
I still don’t know why I was so sure. We were both 40, with very different histories, and fairly set in our tastes and our opinions. In so many ways, we could have clashed horribly, but we clicked. Neither of us was into playing games or prevaricating. We were delighted by each other and we were equally open about it. That was such a marvelous change from everything I’d been through before.
We got married on Feb. 14 the following year, at Brooklyn City Hall, about six months after we met. We chose the date so that neither of us would forget our anniversary (as I had been inclined to do the first time around). We had the religious wedding on Memorial Day, with family and friends gathered around a huppa in Marshall’s brother’s springtime garden. The two brothers and their mother, all great cooks, did the catering. My parents couldn’t come from South Africa, but they listened by telephone, kvelling that their middle-aged daughter had finally found such a mensch.
Our son, Gabe, is now 13, and the light of our lives. We would love to have had lots more children, but having started so late, that didn’t work out. For that reason and so many others, I’ve wished we’d met earlier, but timing can be crucial.
It turns out, in fact, that we did cross paths about six years before. The house I was sharing in the East Village caught fire (fortunately, only the outside!). When I told Marshall the story years later, he remembered seeing that fire as he walked by on the street on his way back from a teaching assignment.
We might have had all those extra years together! But remembering who we were back then, if we had met among the fire engines and flashing lights that day, it would probably have been disastrous. Neither of us was ready yet to say, “Interested in starting a family.”
Your turn
This week, NJJN is launching a new occasional feature, “Kol Simcha.” Staff writer Elaine Durbach will tell the stories behind the happy occasions that mark our lives, including weddings, anniversaries, milestone birthdays, and b’nei mitzva. To get the ball rolling — and given that Feb. 14 is her anniversary — Elaine begins with her own story.
If you would like to share your special story — how you met your spouse, an unusual wedding, a milestone anniversary — contact Elaine Durbach or 973-275-1633 or c/o NJJN, 901 Route 10, Whippany, NJ 07981-1157.
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