withever
our story
Jonathan and Elle are geeks—the kind who faithfully visit tech sites and get involved enough to do more than read the content. When Jonathan sent in an article for consideration, it crossed Elle’s desk before a senior editor gave it a pink slip. Despite this initial rejection, they remained cordial to each other, exchanging polite hellos and how-do-you-dos whenever they crossed paths online.
When Jonathan, then living in San Diego, announced that he was going to Washington, D.C. in June of 2003, Elle mentioned that she was also going to be in town. Intrigued, Jonathan invited Elle to meet with him and his friends over dinner at The Brickskeller the night before he was to leave. When Elle saw how good he looked in a suit, her heart went “pitty-pat.” It was, as she later admits, a most disconcerting response.
Having recently ended a long-term relationship, Elle had had enough of “that pitty-pat nonsense,” and remained cordial yet cool to Jonathan at first, though they continued their dialogue via e-mail and telephone. When she went on vacation in July, she didnt speak with him for five days. But she thought about him. A lot. It bothered her to have him on her mind, especially when she’d only spent so little time with him and hadn’t really looked at him all that closely.
She had read somewhere that what really attracted people was a chemical substance called pheromones—the molecular essence of a person’s scent—literally attracting at the almost subconscious level of smell. She didn’t trust voodoo or spook science any more than she trusted “pitty-pat.” She had vowed that if she ever—ever got involved again, she would trust her brain. It would be an arranged marriage where she did the arranging—with a man who made sense to her. And then she’d worry about falling in love with him.
So when she found herself on a flight to San Diego, where she had decided to spend a September weekend with Jonathan, she thought seriously about turning around and going back during her layover. But she didn’t.
When Jonathan met her in the late summer sun of San Diego, looking much like he did in D.C., her heart went “pitty-pat” again. What sealed the deal for her though was his embrace, the one that had her burying her face against his neck and breathing in deep of him. And yes, he smelled right.
Despite their best efforts, the two saw each other every day for the next four days—reading comic books together on the hotel balcony that overlooked the harbor, watching the fireworks over the water, and holding hands at the movies. When she left to go back to Tennessee, she kissed him goodbye and spent the entire flight wondering if he was thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him. He was. And it only took him seven months to decide she was worth staying in the States for.