One decade down and still going strong

I'm a sucker for anniversaries. Dates seem to resonate for me so I especially miss my mom on the anniversary of her death, for example. But mostly, anniversaries I remember are typically good things.

As many of you know, John and I marked the 10-year anniversary of our first date Jan. 1. It seems so "Go Blue!" but our first date was a Rose Bowl party hosted by friends of friends of John's.

Our first date clued me in that dating John was going to mean experiencing life differently. I expected people in sweatshirts digging into big plastic bowls of Doritos and swilling beer from bottles. Instead, the hostess greeted me in a black velvet party dress with a full champagne flute in her hand, and sometime early in the game she served up a platter of tuna sashimi. I wasn't confident enough in chopsticks skills to believe I could reach a piece of raw fish across the laps of people I'd never met, but somehow I managed. After the game, we had Thai-style spicy shrimp. This was not like any football party I'd ever been to, but it was fun.

We celebrated the 10-year mark by watching Michigan's bowl game -- NOT the Rose Bowl this year -- and having Thai food and sushi delivered. My chopsticks skills have improved, but the biggest change is reflecting back on how much life has changed since January 1998.

Several months before that first date, I'd been through the spectacular flameout of a relationship that left me devastated. I licked my wounds for a few months, then when I cautiously started dating again, I lucked into spending time with a guy who so wasn't a real match for me. That was what made him so perfect. Neither of us wanted a long-term relationship. He was holding out hope that he'd get back together with an ex-girlfriend who'd moved on to someone else, and I had no interest in anything beyond getting out of the house a little.

We had a blast together. We played darts and saw movies and made enough other laugh. I knew I could never spend my life with someone who had never in his life voted, and I'm not sure he ever told his mother he was dating a girl who wasn't Jewish. That was all totally OK.

Meanwhile, I was giving a lot of thought what I wanted from a life partner, when I might be ready to actually date again. I made a list of the attributes of my perfect mate -- everything from making me laugh to liking good food, travel and animals.

I wasn't exclusive with Mr. Right For Now, so I went out with him on New Year's Eve, then saw John on New Year's Day. Shortly after that, John and I went on our second date, and I came home and read over my perfect mate list. Mr. Right For Now had almost none of the attributes on the list. John appeared to have almost all of them.

Still, I'd made a promise to myself that I wouldn't get exclusive with anyone until one year after the break up -- again with the dates and anniversaries -- so when John asked me to go steady after a few weeks, I choked. I knew I liked him but I didn't want to rush.

His feelings were hurt and he retreated a little. I knew I didn't want to lose him, and I could pretty easily imagine marrying him. I figured even a girl who's into dates and anniversaries could bend the rules a little.

One year after the break up would have been April. On Valentine's Day, I told John I'd stopped seeing Mr. Right For Now ... because he wasn't any more ... and that I wanted to be exclusive with him. He pouted a little at first, but thankfully, he caved in.

This Valentine's Day, it'll be 10 years since we got exclusive. It's almost hard to imagine that there was a time when I didn't have him in my life. He's been such a cheerleader through business school and my new job, and I can't imagine the move to New York without him. He's still pretty much everything I want and need in a mate.

Oh, and the bonus happy ending to the story: Mr. Right For Now didn't want a serious relationship because he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, who was not only seeing someone else but actually living with the competition. At nearly the exact time I realized I wanted to be exclusive with John, the ex-girlfriend decided to dump her live-in and give it another go with her ex. They later got married and had a baby. So we both got what we needed out of that layover relationship.