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My brother-in-law is not a traditional matchmaker. One morning he ran into work excited and proclaimed:

“I found you a boyfriend.”

“Who?” I said suspiciously.

“The Man” he said.

“Whose The Man” I said.

“You know The Man from the Bar”

I told him that while The Man from the Bar was cute in that ‘dude, I’m a surfer’ way, he was also from a certain surfing country (i.e. Not Greece) and I was in no mood to be burning passports.

That is when Brother-In-Law became a less traditional matchmaker than say my mother. Because he said, “So what? He’s perfect to have fun with. And that’s what you need.”

I managed to change the subject because I did not want to begin to explain to him that “I don’t know how to only have fun. I’m an all or nothing kind of girl. But, the idea of him as a possible crush managed to lodge itself in my head.

A couple of weeks later, The Man walked into The Store to greet Brother-in-Law and we were formally introduced. We all chatted for awhile and he made a good impression on me. He was funny. Not too loud; in voice or personality. Thoughtful. And tall. Nice, I thought.

A couple of weeks after that, a friend and I chilled at The Bar while he was carving pumpkins for Halloween. He said hi. I said hi. He said bye. I said bye. My friend said, “Do you know him or is he flirting with you?”

Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? “I know him” I said and shrugged my shoulders. But her comment made my heart flutter a little.

Then this morning, I was standing outside The Store chatting to the girl from next door when he passed by me. It was cold and he was walking pretty fast, but he turned his head to greet me and it all happened so quickly and he said,

“Hi Hope. How are you doing?” I’m sure many of you want to scroll down to see what happened next. Nothing happened next. He walked on by and I continued talking about the weather, albeit with a much more real smile.

I mention it (and I kept smiling for a full ten minutes) because he remembered my name. And used it.

I’m a woman of small pleasures what can I say.