Dating then and now, and how it’s Changed

Today, we’re not going to talk about Organizing your Digital Life. For sure I could talk for days and days about it (and I intend to continue to do so), but that’s not what Valentine’s day is about. Today is a day where we get to celebrate the ones we love. I am fortunate enough to have someone like that in my life; my incredible wife, Samantha.

I’ve known Sam for more years than, I would imagine, she would care for me to remember. We met in University. We had the same Political Science class (electives for us both), and one of her friends was in the Teachers Assistant class, and one of mine was in hers. It was only natural that the four of us ended up sitting together. It’s funny because even after 17 years, (Oops, I said it!) meeting her in that class still makes me smile.

Over the holiday break, I decided to watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which I think is what inspired this post. See, our first date was to see Fellowship of the Ring (the first movie) in theatres. This date happened in the days before smartphones, and GPS tracking in your hand…so the series of events that occurred are not my fault.

The theatre where we went to see the movie was in a strip mall in Ottawa called South Keys. I lived on campus at the time and she lived at home (she was local) and so she met me on campus and we were able to to take a quick Light Rail Train to the movie. I had assumed that the transit would still be open after the movie was done. When we got out it was dark and a little cold so waiting for the train to show up was very chilly after a while. It wasn’t long until we realized that no train was coming because it was past it’s operating time. Had this happened today I would have easily been able to check from the app that they presumably have that they weren’t running, but as I said, I didn’t have the apps or a smartphone at the time….so we both froze until we realised what was going on.

The next thought was to try and catch a bus because we both knew that those ran later. The problem was that where the bus came into South Keys was on the other side of the mall, so we had to walk through the blistering cold to get there. Once we got there, we found out that they USUALLY ran later, but on that particular night that was not the case. Again I say that because neither of us had the technology to get the schedules on our phones, which would have saved us a bit of a walk, we were getting colder and colder. Eventually, we gave up and walked another distance to the other end of the parking lot to get to the street to hopefully hail a cab. Hailing a taxi would have been easier had Uber been around, but again, it was 2002, and it wasn’t.

I, being a gentleman, offered to take her all the way home and then catch a bus (which ran 24/7) that was near the apartment where she was staying. We took the cab there, and when we both got out, and it had left, I saw that not only were there no busses to be found at the Bus station, but there were also no lights to be seen either (never a good sign). Again, if Uber and smartphones had been around it would have been no problem as likely I would have had that particular driver’s number, but as I didn’t, I had to sweet talk the guy in the security booth at the apartment complex to call a cab for me. Luckily for me, he did, and I was able to get back to campus.

I bring all this up for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is a MASSIVE difference between the dating scene between now and then. Putting aside our ability to pick and choose who we want to see socially (and swiping right on those we don’t) the series of calamities that happened during that date could have been avoided if we could. That being said I would have changed any part of that date for the world.

The second reason I bring up that date is that, well, it was on Valentine’s day. I’ll be honest, Valentine’s day had never made that much of an impact on me previously, but because of that date, my opinion has since been vastly changed. Now I like Valentine’s day, and it’s because of my date with Sam. It’s very likely I’ll be having lunch with her today. It’s important to remember that while we rely on our technology, it’s our relationships that we have that make the difference. Yes there was a goofy set of things that happened during that date, and it could have gone wrong, but it went well, and it made for a solid start for our relationship. It should also be worth noting that we ended up getting married less than a kilometre from where we saw the movie. Make sure that today, you talk to your loved ones about how special they are. Luckily we have technology that allows us to do a great deal, but it’s our relationships that make us all stronger.

Have you had an interesting (or goofy) date that ended up making your relationship better?

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