How Lunch Got This Man A Wife Named Dan

I met my wife in the most romantic place in the world: a Chinese fast food restaurant. There was nothing horticultural about The China Garden, although short weeds growing through cracks scattered its parking lot. The restaurant was located in a rather dim and large building on the same block of a major state university. There was no sign on the building, so it’s a wonder anyone knew the name of the business. A passerby could not peer in because the tint on the front windows was too dark. Burnt grease, not egg rolls, could be smelled through the front door before cracking it open. Perhaps it goes without saying that even during lunch hour, this restaurant had more tables and chairs than customers. Yet, a romantic relationship came out of this place.

The miracle about this restaurant is not that I met my future wife in it. Remaining open for 5 years and while I was attending school nearby was the greater triumph. Maybe it kept its doors open for as long as it did because it had affordable food and was within walking distance to the university. Price and proximity can be chief criteria for some students when deciding where to eat. My best friend and I were proof of that.

Clint and I shared a criminal justice class together that let out at 11:50am. On one Friday afternoon after finishing our last test in that class, I offered to buy Clint some lunch at The China Garden. He accepted. As to be expected, there were only two other diners in the restaurant at the time we were. This would become important later when the only waitress on duty would spend more time talking to us than serving us.

The China Garden was a buffet, hence me referring to it as “fast food” earlier in the narrative. For whatever reason, Clint and I decided to order from the menu instead of buffing up on the buffet. We sat down at a table with overtaxed booths and hairline rips in their lining. Clint started looking around for the waitress. He found her and simultaneously spit out an “Oh my god.” I looked at what he was he was looking at. A model-thin, Asian waitress with long, shiny, flowing black hair started towards us. Clint literally said, “That girl looks like a super model.” I don’t know if he was more shocked by her archetype appearance or that someone with it was waiting tables for tips at a contradictory china garden. She was definitely not someone I expected to see at any low-quality, Chinese chophouse.

It escapes me how a server in the standard waitress uniform of black pants and white shirt could look glamorous and graceful. But those qualities did not escape her. She was thin enough that one would think an intense wind would topple her. Yet, the wind appeared to be carrying her. She virtually glided to our table. Her gait was natural. Yet, it made you think she had years of walking across a room self-assured that everyone else in it was going to notice when she did. She knew you knew this, too, but somehow her demeanor conveyed it in a non-arrogant, non-condescending way so that you were still beckoned to her.

Her shoes were hidden by the long black pants, but what could not be concealed was that they were definitely making her look taller than she was. Those shoes made her look a foot taller, and it was clear that some things about women are universal regardless of ethnicity—at least when it came to shoes. The tight white blouse accentuated her waist, which somehow made her breasts look bigger although it was still clear they were proportionate to the rest of her. By that I mean you knew her breasts were there but you also knew they were not implants.

I once saw a picture of the top 25 contestants for Ms. North Korea. They all had black hair, black eye brows, dark eyes, the same height, same complexion, and same body type. The photo looked like one girl taking 25 different poses. All of the above could be said about this waitress. Yet, if she were placed strategically in that photo, she would instantly stand out because she was somehow exceptionally different. Later on in our relationship, I would often refer to this woman with the terms of endearment “my little yellow rose” or my “Asian angel.” These were actual and factual descriptions of her though.

Ms. Model arrived at our table, placed some silverware wrapped in napkins before us and asked what we would like to drink. We both asked for water, and Clint asked for menus. She had not brought them with her because she assumed—and fairly so—that we were there for the lunch-hour buffet. After walking away to get the menus, Clint said he had to go to the bathroom.

There begins the best part of story on how I met my better half. Clint said, “When I get back, I’m gonna ask that waitress out.” I said, “I don’t think you got it in you” to which he replied, “You wait and see. I’m asking her for her phone number when I get back.” We laughed that off.

I thought it would be hilarious if I had this girl’s phone number before Clint got back from the bathroom. The waitress returned as Clint walked away. I began my line and I said it slowly to get her attention and to make sure she looked at me when I spoke to her, “You look so young. How old are you?” She barely looked 20, but I knew Asians looked younger than they were and I knew if she was waiting tables in the afternoon that she had to be older than 18. I asked her age to get her talking to me.

“I’m 24 years old,” she slightly giggled. “How old are you?” Her voice was innocent and elegant.

“I’m old. I was born in 1970.” She did not ask me for my birthday. It was a deliberately unusual answer because I wanted to keep her talking, which one-word answers usually don’t engender. Although my question did not catch her off guard, I stifled a chortle when she responded. I saw her raise her eyes to the ceiling and start counting her fingers as if she were doing math. “Oh,” she said, “You are 27. That’s not too old.” And there it was. Too old for what exactly? She was comparing our ages. So I knew I was not repulsive to her . . . yet. I knew I was supposed to go slower and ease her in, but I also knew Clint was a man and would not be in the bathroom for half an hour either. I asked her if she was going to the university, and she said no because she had to make money first and that she planned to go to school later to major in Business. She asked if I was going to school and I told her yes and that I would be finished in about two more years. She said, “That’s not too long, what’s your major.” So she asked a few more introductory questions of me and continued the conversation. This told me she was actually interested in me and not talking to me just because she was my waitress. I finally told her my name was Patrick and I asked for her name.

She replied, “Dan.”

I hesitated. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“Dan.”

“Is it spelled, D A N?” I asked phonetically.

“Yes. In China this is a woman’s name. It means blood.”

Of course I now had many more questions and we could have spoken for half an hour just about her name. But I knew Clint was going to come back any minute. I could tell she had an accent, but I assumed she was born in America because her English was decent. “So you were born in China?”

“Yes. I’ve been in the USA for only 3 years.”

I was stunned, “What? How is your English so good?”

“Oh, I started learning English in elementary school. By the time I was in the university we were only allowed to talk English in many of my classes.”

So Dan had finished 4 years of college in China and came to America to wait on tables . . . or so I thought. That was going to have to be another topic to discuss further next time. I saw Clint open the door at the other end of the restaurant. I had to finish this now.

“Dan,” I asked, “Have you been anywhere in America yet or do you just work all the time?”

“I’ve been nowhere yet. I work all the time 6 days a week and I always sleep all day my only day off.”

“Oh, that’s a lot. When is your next day off?” I needed this information now because I was about to ask her out.

She answered, “I’m off this Sunday.”

As Clint made it half way back to the table, I quickly told her I would like to go out with her this Sunday after she wakes up. She said yes. I asked her for her phone number so I could call her later after she got off work so we could talk some more. She tore a piece of paper off her ticket book and wrote her number on it for me. She handed the paper to me the instant Clint sat back down at the table.

“Here’s my number,” she said.

The timing could not have been more perfect. Clint had the kind of smile on his face that we used to refer to as the shit-eating grin, but for the sake of this story, it was a smile. I introduced him to Dan and said, “She’s 24 years old and has been here only 3 years and she’s letting me take her out this Sunday on her next day off.” Clint was quite nice to her, but she promptly went back to work when he started talking to her. I was happy at what I had accomplished, but her not asking him questions to keep his conversation going made me much happier. She knew how to end the conversation and get back to work when there was nothing left that interested her. Suck it Clint, I thought to myself.

Clint had blonde hair, blue eyes, played a guitar, could sing, and he wrote his own country songs. He looked like he played football, although he never played a sport in his life. He did not have to ask anyone out. Girls asked Clint out, and they did so all the time. He’d be okay.

So what was so romantic and wonderful about my “how did we meet” story? That serendipitous acquaintance produced an 8-year marriage. Neither that meeting nor that marriage should have happened. I had eaten at that restaurant 3 times before and had seen that waitress 3 times before but never spoke to her. I only asked her to go out with me on that day because I thought it would have been a great joke to play on my friend Clint who had intended to ask her out. If Clint had never revealed his plan to me, I never would have asked Dan out, I never would have moved in with her 3 months later, and I most certainly would not have been married to her just 3 months after that. That is correct. We married 6 months after our fluke meeting.

Clint sang at our wedding. I have no idea why he disavows my story, but to this day Clint denies it ever happened. He actually told my 3 sisters that he never said he was going to ask Dan out on a date. We are in our 50’s now. Clint has lived with several women, but he has never been married. If Clint had not been in one of my Criminal Justice classes—a class he registered for at the last minute because one of his others had been cancelled—I would not have been married either.

I made it to 27 without being married, and up to that point I had preached to everyone I knew that I would never be married. Even back then I was well aware that marriage was a larvae stage for divorce. I saw what divorce did to too many of my friends. The first men I ever saw cry, were two of my friends that had gotten divorced. I wanted no part of that. A little college town had me in it only for 4 years; I was going to return home as soon as it gave me a very expensive piece of paper. I did not start college there until I was 27 years old. Most married college graduates achieved both degrees before they were that age. Marriage was certainly not a mission of mine when I quit a job and moved hours away from home—and Mom—just to start college. Many people meet their life partner in college. I did. Well, technically I met her next to one.

In How Not To Die Alone, Logan Ury tells you that how and where a couple meets is not important. You do not have to have a magical, how-we-met story to tell others at parties. The most important factors of relationships come after meeting the love of your life. Logan is certainly correct that you do not have to have a romantic, first-meeting story to have a good relationship. That perfect peculiarity does not define your future collaboration with another human being. The fact of the matter is, though, all great love stories start with a great short story. I believe I had one in the late ‘90s when I met my future wife. Now I know what it feels like to have that intriguing introduction to coupledom. So it’s a lot more difficult—almost impossible—for me to enter into another relationship without having that fantastic first encounter to recount. Because of that, in part, Logan would call me a “romanticizer”—a person who looks for their partner with fairytale expectations.

A fairy tale is not what I was hoping to find—especially not at the China Garden. I was not even looking for a partner. I was looking for a cheap lunch. I got that and much, much more. I got a wife named Dan.