mr right

This is the speech that I gave at Stephanie and Joe's wedding, on September 30, 2006. It's amazing what you can find when you haven't cleaned all the way to the bottom of the pile for a while:

I've known Stephanie a good long while. She's the reason I knit, the reason I know at least some of what it's like to have children, and is largely responsible for me being as ethically upstanding as I am. Any failings I have in this regard are entirely of my own doing.

I owe a lot to Stephanie, and she has also taught me a great deal about Mr Right. Around eight years ago, after a couple of years of singlehood, Stephanie was in an art gallery that had opened not far from where she still lives. She had wandererd in and was having an interesting conversation about art history with the most incredible looking man with wavy hair and sparkling eyes. He seemed smart and charming, and in his tank top his physical charms were likewise obvioius. Then it slowly began to dawn on her. The realization that this fine, fine specimen of a man was not just talking idly with her. He was alert and engaged.

Interested.

In her.

She assessed all of the things that he had going for him, and did what really, no one else I can think of would have done under the same circumstances. She ran.

Now I don't mean to say that she politely extricated herself from the conversation and went to the powder room, never to return. No, when I say she ran, I mean she ran. Like the Olympics kind of ran.

"At least tell me your name," he called out to her.

"No!" she yelled over her shoulder.

When she was explaining this to me later, I was worried. This guy sounded great. What if he was Mr Right? Stephanie was unconcerned. "One of the things that makes Mr Right Mr Right, she explained, is that he doesn't make you want to run away."

Eventually a man did come along who didn't trigger the flight reflex in Stephanie (although the fight reflex still seems to exercise itself occasionally), and I have to say that I'm pretty darned happy with her choice. I can't imagine a better match for Stephanie than Joe, and I consider my self fortunate to now be able to count him among my friends.

Congratulations to you both!