Love at first sight?

On this day in 1991, I attended a meeting at the SFO Marriott along with every other engineer who worked at United Airlines maintenance base in San Francisco. Our job classifications were changing and it was the first of many knifes in the back that so-called "management" employees would take over the years. I sat next to a friend and coworker, trying to pay attention to the executive double talk. During a break, I noticed a bunch of guys sitting three or four rows in front of us. Okay, I'd noticed them before, but I was trying to listen to how this might effect my job.

One of the guys stood up. He was tall, a little over six feet tall with curly dark blond hair. He wore a button down light blue oxford shirt. I could see the outline of his T-shirt beneath his long sleeve. He looked back, not at us, but that's all it took. He was so handsome he took my breath away. Seriously. Once I could breathe again, I leaned over to my friend and told her that was the man I was going to marry. She laughed. So did I.

As time went on, I kept an eye out for the "mystery man" as my friends called him. Four months later I found him in the main cafeteria while having lunch with some friends. My secretary arranged for him to have lunch in the Turbine shop cafeteria where I worked. We met, ate and fought over a problem a plane had been having. He blamed my engine. I blamed his airframe. It wasn't pretty. So much for love at first sight! I realized there was no way in the world I would ever marry someone like him.

Later, when I was sitting at my desk, my boss came up to me. She wanted to know what was going on with me and the guy I had lunch with. I told her nothing. That he might be good looking, but he was an arrogant, cocky, jerk. Good, she said, because she thought the exact some thing about him!

On April 2nd, 1995, I had to eat the words of not marrying someone like him when I did marry him in his hometown on Long Island, New York. In the almost four years in between, he'd had plenty of time to mellow. We had become hiking buddies and friends. I'd even dated one of the guys who worked for him. Even my boss agreed that he had changed. Plus it turned out I had been right about what we fought about at lunch. The problem hadn't been with my engine! And yes, I still bring that up to this day! Wouldn't you?

Needless to say, we weren't a case of love at first sight. Sure, I might have said I was going to marry him, but I quickly changed my mind after actually meeting him. And there were plenty of rough spots even getting to the dating stage. The thing that turned everything around was actually a poem I'd written that I finally mustered enough courage to give him when we were in that do we become more than friends stage.

Love took time for us, but I know people who swear they fell in love that very first time they met. Do you think love at first sight is possible? Have any examples?

Video for the day: Hubby and I danced our first dance as husband and wife to this song at our wedding.

One last thing... Happy Birthday to the Muse! Hayden Christensen turns 26 today!