So by now, I am sure you're wondering, how did we go from flirty tweeting to real life friendship to full blow relationship. Well, here it goes...Part II
July 22, 2009
Well, on the evening of July 22, @masterluke and I were engaging in regular routine of tweeting and flirting. He had returned to FL after a summer internship at the Capital in DC, and was enjoying a late night game of beach frisbee with some friends from law school. It was about 1 am on the east coast. I tweeted that 1am beach frisbee sounded like a lot of fun, and he replied with the defining flirty tweet...He replied telling me to come to FL anytime and we could have our maralade party and get in a game of late night beach frisbee. In retrospect, Fabrice and I always joke about whether or not this was a real invitation -- Me: Of course it was..Him: Ummmmmm no comment...Lol. Either way, I saw this as my invitation to see what all this flirting was all about. I worked up the nerve to send @masterluke103 a direct message (a private twitter message), "Random Question: what is your real name Lol"...but wait, that wasn't enough, so 30 minutes later I sent another one "Here is my email address so we can plan our marmalade party :)"... as I'm typing this, I realize that I could have been perceived as a little desperate! Phew! I'm glad everything worked out. So, I waited...no response! I was so confused. As Fabrice is now well aware, I lack patience pants, and I wanted an immediate response! I texted Gyll and told her that I had sent @masterluke103 a direct message but he had not responded. She replied, be patient, he probably didn't get it yet, but I wasn't listening. I was lost in my own thoughts, "oh shit! why did I do that? He is gonna think I am crazy, or too aggressive...maybe he has a girlfriend...omg, why did I do that?" But, in the meantime, he and I were still tweeting and flirting back and forth, so I thought to myself that maybe Gyll was right, so I tweeted "Hey, check your DMs." Sure enough he had not seen them, and a few minutes later, he replied back with his real name, his email address, and his phone number. I quickly sent him a text to make note of my number, and we chatted via text for just a few minutes. We both played it cool, and he politely asked when would be good time to call. I replied "anytime after 5," and that was it. We said good night, and that was the beginning of our real life friendship...
The very next day, he called. When the phone rang, I was driving down La Cienega, on my way to Hollywood for a party with a couple friends. I answered the phone, greeted by a pleasantly surprising deep voice, and a very well spoken Fabrice (as I now knew him). I don't know what I expected him to sound like, but this wasn't it and I liked it. He asked if it was a good time, and I replied that it was perfect. I had arrived at the venue a little early, and was lonely waiting for my friends out front. So we chatted for a few minutes about LA's nightlife, and exchange all the normal "getting to know you" banter. in an effort to not seem to desperate, I cut the conversation short, telling him that I should probably go so I could pay attention and look out for my friends, but I would definitely give him a call tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went, and so did the day after that. I actually took an impromptu trip to San Diego to visit some friends. Finally two days later, I was lounging by the pool (in my new swimsuit), when for no apparent reason, I began thinking about my new friend Fabrice. I wondered what he was doing, and remembered that I was supposed to call him. Instead of calling, I decided to send him an email with a picture of me lounging by the pool in my swimsuit (I know, ladies...scandalous! Lol). There was nothing in the body of the message, just the picture, a subject line that read "Hi from the pool!!"
He replied with a picture of himself lounging on the couch "Hello from the couch..That's a sexy picture.." and alas, it seems that our cyber flirting had just taken on a new form. From there we began texting back and forth, and I told him I'd be heading back to LA late that evening, and would give him a call if it wasn't too late there on the east coast. In the meantime, I asked if he had facebook, and told him to find my profile, which he did. Finally, a couple hours later, I arrived home and before I could even drop my bags, I dialed his number. What happened next set the tone for a great friendship, and and even greater relationship... he made me smile, and i haven't stopped smiling since (I'll hold the barf bags!). Okay, but really, he did the sweetest thing, and it was so simple. He simply paid attention. He had been checking out my pictures on facebook, and he says "So, I have a question for you, is your favorite color green?" Wow! I know that seems like a small thing, but to me it meant that he'd actually paid attention to the woman he saw in the pictures. Well, from that minute, I knew that I liked this Fabrice guy.
We stayed on the phone until the wee hours of the morning that night, and every night after that (he even fell asleep mid-conversation once or twice). We'd talk on the phone until 5 am most nights, but only because he had set his phone to automatically reboot at this time everyday. This was amazing considering that neither one of us like talking on the phone. We talked about everything under the sun...religion, school, relationships, friendships, comic books (he's a big fan, and he's turning me into one too!), movies, our goals, our dreams. You name it, we talked about it. We seemed to have that perfect balance of commonality and diversity of opinion, but it never led to a disagreement. It was like we had a mutual understanding and appreciation for differences of opinion. He introduced me to all kinds of new things (I'll get into that later). His dry wit and cynical sense of humor proved to tickle me even more "in person" than it had on twitter and he kept me giggling and smiling profusely. We laughed and joked around for hours everyday. We'd email, and chat, and tweet, and text all day, and even after talking all day, we'd still spend our nights talking on the phone until the wee hours of the morning, only to wake up the next day and do it all again. I found myself longing to talk to Fabrice, and the best part was the longing was mutual.
Looking back on it, we are both baffled by how it all happened. Even with all our flirty tweets, neither one of us expected anything more than a good long distance friendship to come of it. We couldn't have been more wrong...
To be continued....
Boy oh Boy! That man of mine is so sweet! Today I came home to a UPS delivery notice. There was a package left for me on the back patio. A package? I wasn't expecting anything. I opened the patio door to a huge box addressed to "Eboni Saint-Elie" (a freudian slip apparently, because he says he didn't mean to address it that way *wink wink*)...Instantly, a smile spread across my face, and I thought to myself, "Are you kidding me? OMG, no he did not send me another gift!" Mind you, a couple weeks ago he sent an Edible Arrangements fruit basket to my job, followed by a big box full of gifts the next day (books, a gift card to target, a gift card to VICTORIA SECRET!!! three volumes of my favorite manga series -- Naruto, and digital picture frame loaded with all the pictures from his Winter Break here in LA!!!) How freakin' thoughtful is that!?! So imagine my surprise, when I realized that he was sending me yet ANOTHER gift!!!
