I was recently listening to The Rewatchables, a podcast about films people love to watch again and again. They were discussing “When Harry Met Sally” and debating how realistic it would be for Harry and Sally to end up together after the film.
Both women on the podcast argued that although it’s the happier, more satisfying ending, these things don’t happen in real life.
Friends like Harry and Sally never marry, they said. Improbable relationships never end happily ever after.
“Nonsense,” I thought. “Why so jaded and cynical?” I wondered. Elysha and my marriage was just as improbable as Harry and Sally’s marriage, yet we are currently living happily ever after.
When I met Elysha in the waning days of the summer of 2002, I was ending a marriage to another woman, and Elysha was engaged and just a few months away from being married to another man. Yes, my marriage was ending, and yes, Elysha was beginning to have doubts about her engagement, but still, we were both committed to other people when we met and definitely not available.
Elysha and I first laid eyes on each other on a late August day during our first faculty meeting of the school year. She had just been hired to teach at Wolcott School, and I had taught there for three years.
I remember thinking that Elysha was beautiful, young, and impossibly cool—the kind of girl who would never even look in my direction.
She remembers thinking of me as one of the cool kids, laughing and joking my way through that first meeting with my faculty friends.
We started as colleagues, with a single classroom separating our two classrooms. Our first real conversation occurred during a hike with students around the lake at Camp Jewell in Colebrook, CT. Elysha was telling me about her upcoming wedding, and as a wedding DJ, I offered her advice on her upcoming wedding and told her about my wedding.
An improbable movie moment, if ever there was one.
Eventually, Elysha and I became friendly. She asked me to do her taxes. I dropped her off at a garage to pick up her car. She and I took students to lunch at The Rainforest Cafe at the end of the school year as part of a raffle prize. We brought students who had never visited an art museum to the Wadsworth Atheneum.
Elysha didn’t know it then, but it was also my first visit to an art museum.
We were friendly, but after that meal with the students, we said goodbye for the summer, never speaking until the beginning of the next school year.
We were friendly, but we certainly weren’t friends.
Elysha called off her engagement about two months before the wedding, and around that same time, I officially separated from my wife. Even then, we didn’t even think about getting together. After picking ourselves off the ground, we eventually began dating other people. A colleague introduced Elysha to a friend, which started an almost year-long relationship with another man. I dated a few people during that time, including our school psychologist, but nothing serious.
Like Harry and Sally’s relationship, ours deepened during that time, but still, there was no romance. We were simply good friends dating other people.
About a year later, as our relationships with those other people began to wane, we finally turned toward each other. In truth, I had noticed Elysha right from the start but had always assumed that she was too beautiful and – more importantly – too cool ever to be interested in me. The fact that she was my friend was thrilling enough.
But as our late-night phone calls grew longer and longer and we shared more and more of our lives, I started to wonder if it was possible that Elysha Green could actually like me.
Like like me.
Honestly, I thought it impossible.
Elysha made the first move during a hike on Mount Carmel in Sleeping Giant State Forest. On the way down the mountain, she reached out and held my hand.
I couldn’t believe it.
Later that night, in our school’s parking lot, she told me she liked me.
My response: “I’m flattered.” Nothing more.
Please don’t ask me why. I’m stupid sometimes.
Five minutes after she drove off, I replayed the conversation and realized how stupid I had been.
“I’m flattered? What was I thinking? She likes me!”
I panicked.
I called to apologize and tell her I liked her, too. Had liked her for a long, long time. But Elysha was famous then (and now) for not listening to voicemail messages, so I went to bed worried that I had blown my chance with the most incredible woman I had ever known.
Classic romantic comedy misconnection.
The next day, I found a note on my desk, written by Elysha, apologizing for risking our friendship with romance. She asked me to forget what she said and continue to be her friend.
I grabbed the note, raced to her classroom, and tossed it onto her desk, rejecting it wholly and completely.
That night, we kissed for the first time in the parking lot outside my apartment.
Two months later, we moved in together. Six months after that, I asked Elysha to marry me on the steps of Grand Central Terminal in New York City while two dozen friends and family secretly watched amongst the crowd of holiday travelers.
Eighteen months later, on July 15, 2006, we were married.
Friends like Harry and Sally never get married? Improbable romances never work out?
Nonsense, I say!
I could write a screenplay about our relationship – a great romantic comedy – and those two jaded podcast hosts would probably say the same thing:
A boy and girl meet at work. One is married. The other is engaged and about to be married. Their first conversation is about the girl’s pending nuptials. Over time, they become friendly.
Then, the boy’s marriage ends in divorce. The girl calls off her engagement just a few months before the wedding. They engage in new relationships with new people while becoming better and better friends.
Those relationships with other people begin to fail, and then one day, while hiking together on a mountain, the girl reaches out and takes the boy’s hand.
His heart bursts with joy.
Later, she confesses her love to him. He fails to reciprocate because boys are stupid. Eventually, he chases her down and corrects his mistake. Confesses his love.
They kiss. Marry.
Today, they have two kids. A home. Two cats. A brilliant, beautiful life together.
“Yeah, right,” those podcast hosts would say. “Never happens.”
Improbable? Maybe.
Impossible? Nonsense.
