I've got well meaning friends and colleagues who like to set me up on dates. I find this flattering and rarely turn an introduction down because, well, I'm not married and, you never know. I've met my share of accountants, confirmed bachelor college friends of husbands, jackass bankers, over-complicated lawyers, and under-uncomplicated dog walkers. Today's "set up" was in a whole different category, though.
Early in the morning, one of my favorite colleagues bounded over to me full of enthusiasm about someone I just had to meet! This woman has excellent taste and knows me well. If anyone would have a chance of getting it right, it would be she. Her eyes were sparkling... it must be a good one, I thought!
"You have to get in touch with him!" she said, "He's your twin. He's so cute! He's 36, and he started running on a lark just like you did, and then he got tendinitis and he can't run now, but he's still going to run the marathon, and he's just like you! He even has a blog about running. And he's so cute! You have to meet him."
Turns out, it wasn't a friend of a friend, or someone she'd ever met. It was a guy she'd just read about in AM New York, one of the two free daily newspapers in NYC. Yes, people are setting me up with characters they read about in free newspapers. Should I consider this a problem?
An hour later, a wrinkled page 26 slid under my door. My colleague wasn't giving up; and it was true, from the article, it did look like this guy Kai and I had a lot in common; and he was cute, and funny. His blog was called Idiot Runner - and in the one entry I read he wrote about his stupid piece of shit Garmin that wasn't working. Hmmm...
I tracked the man down.
Long story short, Idiot Runner is not single. And his "real life" email alias, by the way, is something akin to StudMuffin@IdiotRunner.com, which might have been a red flag, were this story going where it isn't. Stud Muffin is, however, suffering from tendinitis, as I do, and we have a boatload else in common. Within a few hours we'd become pen pals, Stud Muffin and me. Not sure if we'll stay in touch but I'm pretty sure we'll be brushing shoulders in the last hours of the race, as we both push for our dreams to come true... and hopefully limp across that finish line.
The article: http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/nyc-marathon-2010-the-idiot-runner-copes-with-injury-1.2374333
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