Simply? Mark and I met because we had mutual friends. That’s the easy answer. That’s the answer half the world uses: We had mutual friends. But this situation isn’t really that, because it involved way too many moving pieces, timelines, common interests, and people. It is, in its own way, a perfectly ridiculous adventure.
Some people, who’ve heard our story, say we met because of the internet, or Facebook. “You guys met online!” Yes, but not the usual way. We weren’t looking for a date online. But Facebook was the vehicle. The sparkplug, though, was the whale. And both of us being geeks. Serious, unapologetic geeks.
We were also both divorced 40-somethings who didn’t want to get married again. Ever. Ever ever. As in, no more marriage. No. We both had the single parent gig going on, and a bunch of friends, and full lives. There was nothing that needed to be made more complicated.
But as I often say, as soon as you say “never,” the universe changes that to “as soon as it can possibly be arranged.”
So this is the story of how two people from different continents, who’d sworn off marriage in favor of Netflix marathons and raising their kids (maybe not in that order), met and decided to get married.
SETTING THE STAGE
The choice a 17- or 18-year-old makes when they accept a university admissions offer pulls them into a new community. For me, at Virginia Tech, that community consisted almost primarily of the Squires Media Hall, and the literary magazine, Silhouette. Susan Poulton was also on the Silhouette staff with me, in the early 1990s. We remained friends after graduation, and connected on Facebook in 2008 (we’re early adopters).
THE WHALE
In April 2015, Susan’s work and frequent travels took her to the Nautilus; she’s a bit of a nomadic adventurer. While she was on the ship, a sperm whale buzzed the ROV camera. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, so you just have to watch the video.
How magnificent is that? HOW MAGNIFICENT? The humans on that ship were basically the aliens that day, exploring that whale’s world.
Susan posted the original video, just minutes old, to her Facebook page. I must have watched it a dozen times that morning. At the same time, unbeknownst to me, this random guy Mark was doing the same.
The next day, the video was picked up by BoingBoing and Buzzfeed, and all of these news outlets. I started posting all of the links, as quickly as they went up, to Susan’s Facebook page. This other random guy did the same. And we chatted briefly on the posts about how cool Susan was.
An aside for the curious…
Mark met Susan through her friend (and mine too) Gina, yet another Hokie. Gina had the good sense to marry an Irish guy she met in Washington, D.C. many years ago, Jonny. Jonny had gone to university (another university choice deciding futures) with Jamie, who was Mark’s best childhood friend.
Got that? Read it again, if you have to. I’ll wait.
THE RANDOM FRIEND REQUEST
I woke up on April 16th with a random friend request in Facebook. The dude who knew Susan had friended me.
I’m a pretty savvy social media consumer. In fact, I do it for a living. And I’ve gotten lots of random friend requests, but none that had the following points:
- He knew Susan.
- He had also geeked out pretty hard over the whale sighting.
- He had this bonkers painting of himself, wearing a Yes! button, and Quint from “Jaws,”on an iceberg, fighting Cthulhu. Who wouldn’t find this attractive?*
- His profile said he’d worked at CERN. Specifically, on the Higgs Boson project at CERN. HIGGS BOSON PROJECT AT CERN.*
- He was cute.
- He was Scottish.
So I accepted the friend request.
An aside for the curious…
Yes, I’ve loved Scotland for a long time. It started when I saw “Brigadoon.” We went to the Scottish Christmas Parade in Alexandria every year as a kid. Bagpipes give me goosebumps. I studied James VI/I in graduate school. And let’s not even get into my constant reading and re-reading of the “Outlander” series. Did it hurt that Rando Friend Request was Scottish? Not at all. Was it the reason I friended him?
Did you see number 5?
