The Merlot Manifestation

I was ridiculously nervous. I've always hated blind dates, so why I thought a dating app was a good idea, I don't know. My best friend and even my mom, are more determined to find a husband for me than I am. What do they care if I die a spinster? This is the 21st century, right?

"You talk about being a on the road to 'Crazy Cat Lady'. How are you going to find a partner if you don't put yourself out there?", my best friend, Joy, asked me. In fact, she used to ask me that a lot.

"I know, I'm just so busy with work and the last thing I want to do is pull some drunk guy out of the bar. Been there, done that, bad idea."

Joy looked at me from under her eyebrows, popped her head up and replied, sharply, with, "Blah blah blah." making the talking too much hand motion.

"You know not all men are drunk, chauvinistic, controlling, nasty creatures.", she said.

"Prove it.", I said, and took a long drink of my wine.

"I will. Give me your phone."

Next thing I knew, I was signed up for this bloody dating app, complete with profile photos and a bio, that was a bigger load of crap than my belief all the good men are taken.

That night, at home, with my cats, my phone made a sound I hadn't heard yet. I looked and it was a notification from the app. My stomach immediately turned to lead. I opened up the app to find a message from a guy who looked like he was old enough to be my dad, asking me if I'm a "real" red head. Delete. Block. Really? What is with these men?! I felt like throwing my phone in the toilet, but noticed there were several more messages. My curiosity got the better of me and opened the next message. That one was a guy with no shirt on, flexing his, not so in shape, muscles in a bathroom mirror. A dirty bathroom, at that. The next messages consisted of more half naked bathroom or gym mirror photos, one full naked photo, that I can never un-see, and some either old or awkward looking men. I shut down the app, then shut off my phone, put it in the side table drawer and sat back down next to my cat.

"This is hopeless. I feel like a fool.", I said to her as she purred on my lap.

The next morning I got my phone and turned it back on. I nearly shut it off again when I noticed 27 more notifications from that stupid app. Instead, I called my mom.

"Joy already called and told me about this, sweetie. Don't give up. This is another way of getting yourself out there. Someone will come along, you just have to be open to it.", she said in all her wisdom and endless optimism.

I love my mom, but that was not what I wanted to hear. I decided to take her advise and not give up on it, even with as skeptical as I was. I did have to mute the sounds of the notifications which were horribly distracting at work.

That afternoon, when work was over, I opened a bottle of wine, took it, and a glass, to my sofa, poured a healthy portion and opened up the app. Just like the night before, there were a list of messages that I had no interest in entertaining. The very last message was different and I had to sit up and put my glass down. I took a screen shot of the message and the man's profile and texted them to Joy.

"Is this guy real, or is this the 'cat fishing' I've heard about?", I asked.

"Oh wow!", she replied. "He's hot! He's clean, he looks like he takes care of himself and he uses proper grammar. You should reply to him. That's the only way you're going to find out if he's real or not."

"What do I say?", was my next question and then felt, instantly, like a child, which was made worse by the laughing emojis she initially replied with.

"Here. Send him this." Joy drafted a message, texted it to me with the instruction of copy and paste. Make no changes. I did as I was told, with clenched teeth and a swarm of butterflies in my stomach.

Almost immediately, he replied back. Along with the message was a photo of him, a selfie, holding a piece of paper up with today's date on it. It was him and he was real. Now, time to find what's wrong with him.

That was harder to do than I thought. We messaged back and forth for the next two hours talking about everything from where we're from originally, what we do for work, hobbies, pets, favorite music and movies, all the normal stuff. But that was exactly the point. He seemed normal. By the end of the messaging, he invited me to meet him for dinner the next night and to my own surprise, I accepted.

I felt the tap on my shoulder and right then, I dropped my newly filled glass of merlot in my lap. Of course I was wearing a light blue dress.

"Shit!", I blurted out. I didn't mean to say that out loud and felt like I was now the same color in my face that my wine had been in my glass.

I looked up into the most handsome face I've seen, with a huge friendly smile and bright blue eyes. The waitress walked up, in the same moment, and he said to her, before either of us could speak, "It seems we've had a bit of an accident here. Please bring us some clean napkins, club soda and a new place setting. Oh, and please bring the lady another glass of wine. In fact, bring a bottle of the wine she ordered."

The lady? And, the accent. From the night before, I learned he was originally from England, but I thought, if he's here now, he won't have an accent. Silly me.

He came around to stand next to me, where, I'm pretty sure I looked like a deer in headlights still flushed in the cheeks. He extended his hand, made a small bow and said, "You must be Diana. I'm Alex. It's a pleasure to meet you. I didn't mean to startle you, please accept my apologies." He was so graceful and eloquent while I sat in my soaking wet, now purple spotted, dress, trying not to let my mouth hang open in disbelief.

"Not at all.", I somehow managed to choke out of my tight throat, "I suppose I'm a little jumpy with nerves. I've never met anyone like this before."

"Well, that makes two of us. Ah! Here we are.", the waitress and another restaurant employee walked up with all Alex requested. I excused myself to the lady's room, holding a clean napkin over my front as I walked through the busy dining room, while the staff was fixing my epic explosion.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in absolute horror of the first impression I just made with this needle in a haystack I found in the land of online dating.

Oh god, please have mercy on me. If this man is all he says and seems to be, please don't let anything else go wrong.

There was no saving the dress. The club soda and the water from the sink was making the spots darker. I accepted it for what it was, washed my hands and walked back to the table, mustering as much confidence as I could.

When I got back to the table, it looked like nothing had happened. The table was beautiful with a candle and a fresh vase of flowers. Where did those come from? Wine had been poured and he was waiting patiently. He was striking. The salt and pepper color of his thick hair, the width of his shoulders, the suit he was wearing, how perfectly groomed he was.

"All mended and you are beautiful. Please, come sit.", he got up from his chair, pulled my chair out for me, and pushed it in just right for me to sit down on. Men still do this? I was in the Twilight Zone and it was magnificent!

"Thank you.", I said and looked up at him as he returned to his seat. "I'm not sure how, but you've made this incredibly embarrassing moment seem like not such a big deal. I appreciate that."

"I'm sure, as we get to know each other, my embarrassing moments will come out. It happens to the best of us."

And, at that, our night of drinking, eating and purely enjoyable conversation began. We spent nearly five hours at this restaurant, well after closing time.

He was engaging, attentive, intelligent. He spoke with conviction and he listened intently. When he laughed, his blue eyes sparkled. Literally, they sparkled. It was a blissful evening and we made plans to see each other, the next night, for dinner.

I couldn’t sleep to save my life. All I could think about was Alex and how perfect he was. I had this nagging feeling I met him somehow somewhere, in the past, but couldn’t place it. There was something so familiar about him. I called Joy.

“I swear I know him from somewhere. He’s so familiar to me. The sound of his voice, his body language. He even looks familiar!”

Joy was silent for a moment. Then, I heard her take a deep breath, let it out and then again. After a couple of these deep breaths, I could hear her rummaging through papers on her end of the phone.

“What are you doing?”, I asked.

“Do you remember, years ago, when we attended that meditation retreat in Sedona? Didn’t you keep a journal? I just found mine.”

I did remember and that was about six years ago.

“Yes, I remember. What about it?”, I was racking my brain about the retreat and a connection that had anything to do with my date with Alex.

“You don’t remember your primary focus for that weekend was to find your soul mate?”

Oh shit! That’s right! I gasped and went in search of my own Sedona journal. I found it and on the first page I had written, my intention for this weekend is to find my true love and life partner. It went on to describe, in great detail, my visual and feeling of and about what I thought my soul mate would look like and feel like. Not only that, but the date written on the page was the same date as my date with Alex, only six year previous. All the memories, visuals and feeling came flooding back to me.

“Oh my god.”, I finally said out loud to Joy, who was still waiting on the phone. “It couldn’t. Right? This can’t be real. Right? That’s just woo woo stuff to help with anxiety and self confidence, right?”

“What did we learn that weekend, Di? ‘What is meant for you will come to you’. That was one of the mantras that I have told myself ever since that weekend. Maybe that’s what meeting Alex is for you and you deserve love and happiness more than most with all you do for the people in your life.”

I hung up the phone.

When I met Alex for dinner, that night, bravely, I decided to share my Sedona experience with him.

“Wow.”, he said and sat back in his chair. “I own that resort.”

I then sat back and we sipped our wine.

“I also own the winery, in Paso Robles, where this bottle of Merlot was created.”

We’ve spent everyday since, together.