I'd heard many times that you don't find true love until you stop looking for it. And so several times I'd tried to convince myself that I was no longer looking, but my hopeful heart always betrayed the truth. And that was how true love caught me unaware.

The first semester of my last year of college, my love life was tumultuous at best. I ended a relationship with a perfectly nice guy who was perfectly wrong for me sometime in November. From there I proceeded to confuse companions with loves and vice versa for a time. By the end of winter break, I was free of each of these companions and fairly accepting of the end result of each relationship.

In February, I found I had a choice to make. I had been spending most weekends with a relatively new group of friends -- at least partly because said group included several single males of the approximately correct age etc. to be viable candidates.

But because of this new group -- and other extenuating circumstances which I'll leave out in the interest of time and space -- I felt I had been neglecting my other group of friends (in which I had, for the most part, already dated all the available men, and in some cases with quite pathetic outcomes).

On the weekend of Valentine's Day in 1997, my new group of friends was having a party on Saturday the 15th. However, my friend Mike was having a "Valentine's Day Sucks" part on that same evening. I decided, despite my single status, to be with friends instead of looking for lovers. Convincing my friend Nikki to come down from Pennsylvania for the party, and agreeing to give a ride to my two best friends -- Sev and Dan -- cemented my plans.

The party was pretty much life as I remembered with this group of friends. The ever-present deck of cards materialized in someone's hands and we played until the mightiest among us (Earl) fell (over puking in the yard).

At one point I went into the little cellar room where the refrigerator was located to get a beer, and was barred passage by one of the 3 people at the party I'd never met before.

"Excuse me," I said.
"Why should I let you past?" Inquired a fairly drunk party-goer.
"Because," I replied, "I'm one of three single females here."

He stepped aside, looking as if he couldn't decide whether to be impressed or just surprised. I assumed I was forgiven, however, when he answerd my inquiry to the room in general for a bottle opener by handing me his keys, which included said implement.

Sometime later in the evening, Nikki came to let me know that she was going for a walk, and to her car, where she had a few good beers stashed (but not really enough to share with the whole party). I pointed out that she would need a bottle opener. So, I turned around and asked my new friend if I could borrow his keys again, then promptly handed them over to the capable hands of Nikki.

Here are a few snippits of conversation that occured after that point in the evening.

"Where are my keys?"
"Nikki has them."
"Who is Nikki?"
"Nikki is my friend."
"WHERE's Nikki?"
"She's not here...."

and, later...

"Look, I know my roommate can be kind of a dick, but could you please give us his keys so that he can take me home?"
"Well, you know, I would, but I don't have them right now."

and, later still...

"Now can I have my keys back?"
"Why do you want them?"
"So I can leave."
"But... I don't WANT you to leave..."

In the end, I got my way. He hasn't left yet.
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