by Mark Zeiger

Created on: March 08, 2009

I met my wife the first night of our freshman year in college. I wouldn't figure this out until a couple of years later. I don't mean that I would later realize that she would be my wife, I mean that I wouldn't know till then that I had met her that night.

Our first days of college involved a lot of orientation activities, many of which were designed to get the new student body out to meet each other. Dances, which did this quite efficiently, dominated the schedule.

I had a particular philosophy about college. By the time I entered my freshman year, I'd already been working for two years in my chosen field. I didn't require a degree for the work, but acquiring one would improve my employability. I attended college for that, but mostly to pursue what I considered a social education. Growing up in the small towns of Southeast Alaska, in many respects a single sprawling, compartmentalized, largely closed community left something to be desired. As the son of a minister, I found the restrictions of this environment particularly confining. I longed for a change, and looked to college to provide it.

I broke up with the hometown girl I'd been dating. I chose a college where I likely did not know anyone at all (in fact I knew only two other students, neither of them well). I threw myself into college life with no safety net, ready to meet new people and share new experiences. This also meant that while I was just as eager to meet women as any healthy young man, I had resolved to be careful, to not give my heart too freely too soon.

Armed with this philosophy, I set out to meet all the young women in my class, and as many upper-class women as I could interest as well. I intended to mingle and circulate for at least the first semester before falling in love.

At this first dance I met a pretty girl and her even more attractive friend. I was rather taken by the friend, but she was quiet and reserved, while the first girl proved to be lively, talkative and vivacious. We danced together most of the night and had a very good time.

The next day I met the friend as we crossed the college's wide, sunlit quad. I greeted her and we stopped to chat. I became a bit confused, as she didn't seem to remember me very well, she wasn't quite as pretty in the daylight as she'd been in the darkened auditorium, and her name wasn't what I'd remembered it to be! No matter, I gamely soldiered on.

As for the girl from the night before, I sensed real possibilities for a relationship there, if properly

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