How I Knew He Was the One

By Heather Huntington on September 29th, 2009

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I am not the likeliest candidate for marriage. I didn’t exactly have the cutest and fluffiest of childhoods that I was eager to replicate with my own version of marital bliss. I wasn’t the popular chick in high school who could easily envision man after man competing for the honor of getting to spend eternity with me.

In fact, most of my ‘relationships’ never lasted longer than a couple of weeks – if that. They were few, they were far between, and they were without fail completely heartbreaking. I was always Bridget Jones, single when no one else was. Always the second choice. It was pretty miserable.

And yet, here I am. Married quite happily for just over three years to possibly the nicest guy in the world. Oh, and he’s smart and cute, too.

Today he happens to be away on business, which is a rarity. As a general rule, his preference is to spend every waking minute with me. So much so that at this point I think must seem more like two (adorably, natch) bickering heads stuck on the same body than two separate people to our blissfully forgiving friends.

Josh and I met in late 2001. I had just gotten a contract to write a guidebook on Boston and an acquaintance offered to put me in touch with a city planner she knew–good for advice on that sort of thing.

A mutual friend had met Josh once before, so she tipped me off that he was cute. And when I met him in person for the first time, she was proven correct. Check mark one in a very important box.

We made plans to get together for some advice on my book, but by then I already knew I was interested. When lunch was over, we kept talking, and talking, and talking. At the end of the ‘date’, almost 10 hours later, I called our mutual friend. ‘How was it?’ she asked me. ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with him,’ I replied. Enthusiastically. Very enthusiastically.

Of course, things weren’t all completely that smooth. There were bumps – ex-girlfriend bumps, is this the right thing? bumps, should we move in together? bumps. But in the end it really came down to what I said to Kristin and what I knew about Josh after that very first date – I couldn’t find a damn thing to complain about. And with me that’s a pretty significant thing.

There’s always something wrong with people, that’s a given. The question is: which problems are deal breakers and which ones are just peccadilloes?

The more I got to know Josh, I never saw any deal breakers. What I did see was an unequivocal catch–handsome, sweet, smart, upstanding, silly, and he liked me. And when it came down to it, after a lifetime of only ever being attracted to assholes, when I found myself interested in a nice guy, I wasn’t dumb enough to let him go. So I didn’t.