‘Twas in the happy months of the dotcom era, and I was newly employed. I had a beautiful new purple car with matching sunglasses, new stock options, a spanking new RRSP and a host of frivolous benefits. Life was as sweet as I thought it could be.

The office crones had observed that whenever there was a new girl in the office, there was a guy buzzing around her. The buzz was that my buzzer was Jeff: a tall, yummy, funny guy who shared my love of the great outdoors. Having been single for the past two years, I welcomed his attentions.

Bonnie Raitt would have been proud of Jeff and me. We laughed just a little too loud, stood just a little too close, stared just a little too long. We gave them something to talk about. For three weeks he was my regular lunch man, we went out after work together several times a week, and went over to each other’s place to cook meals together and share our life stories over wine and long, lingering glances.

This is where the chronology in the story becomes important.

Friday
One Friday morning, like every morning, he came into my office and sat on a corner of my desk. We made small talk, our faces jammed into those perpetual smiles of the inevitable, impending beginning. Like every Friday, I asked about his plans for the weekend. Unlike every Friday, he replied,

“I’m going to spend it with my girlfriend”.

Bonnie Raitt suddenly choked. I thought that through her gasps I heard her utter the word “bastard”.

Saturday
The next day, I went to Electric Avenue to drown my sorrows in Roxy Music. And that was the night when I met Thierry. We had a good long chat and eventually exchanged dotcom addresses. It wasn’t all-consuming passion from the get-go, but he didn’t make fun of my purple car either.

Monday
Monday, I came into work, and found everyone standing in the lobby. I was quickly informed that no, we weren’t fired (the dotbomb was to come only a year later), but due to an electrical problem we had the day off. Jeff asked me out to breakfast. Sure, I guess we’re friends after all, I thought.

Over breakfast, he suggested that we drive down to the Adirondacks and spend the day hiking. Sure, I guess we’re friends after all, I thought.

The day turned out to be fantastic. Sure, there was no longer any possibility of romance between us, but I fully and completely accepted our new relationship on its own terms, and thoroughly enjoyed the day. We climbed mount Phelps, had dinner by Lake Placid, caught a movie and got back into Montreal at about 1 am.

Tuesday
Still fully accepting the new terms of my friendship with Jeff, that very morning I e-mailed Thierry an invitation to the movies. The movie sucked, but otherwise, our first date went swimmingly well. He made a reference to Mark Snow, and he was a lot better looking than I’d remembered.

Wednesday
Jeff walks into my office and hands me a handwritten letter, in which he tells me how much he enjoyed the Monday, has now dumped his girlfriend and wants to be with me. Doh!

Talk about timing. There were only five days during which I thought my chances with Jeff were over, and in those five days, I bumped into the man who would become my significant other for the next four years. How different would things have been if that window had been shifted a week earlier or later?

If I need to tell you the moral of the story, you haven’t been listening.