He wasn't the type of guy I was normally attracted to, but he came to class wearing a Smiths shirt, so I developed a little crush. All through English 1A, I don't think we ever said more than a few words to each other. He must have noticed me though (perhaps it was the Smiths patch on the sleeve of my jacket). On the last day of class, he found me in the parking lot while I was walking to my car. We chatted briefly, and he wrote down his name (Cyrus) and phone number.

I wanted to call him, I really did. But I didn't. I couldn't. I was about 6 months into another relationship, and didn't want to do anything to screw it up. Still, I carried that number around in my wallet for close to a year, thinking maybe someday I would call him. As is the fate with most scraps of paper carried around in a wallet, the number was lost, or thrown away. I don't want to say I forgot him, but I think my memory of him was pushed to the recesses of my brain.

Let's fast forward, shall we?

A little over a year ago, I put ads up on a couple of online dating sites. I needed a distraction from the emotional roller coaster that had become my life and e-mailing boys on the internet seemed like a good idea. I had two profiles up. One was fairly generic, and the other started out with a Smiths lyric, and something along the lines of "If you can name that song, I'll be your best friend." It wasn't anything difficult, but I had forgotten about the power of the google. I ended up taking that one down for two reasons. One, I was getting some creepy instant messages. And two, I was kind of disappointed that half of the responses were from guys who didn't know the lyric was "Ask" by the Smiths, but they had looked it up in their favorite search engine, and were now expecting me to respond. My clever idea to find guys with decent taste in music had backfired.

Soon after, I got a response to my boring ad, asking if I had another ad up with a Smiths lyric. He at least go the artist right, so I responded. When he e-mailed back, he listed his name, age and location: Cyrus, Santa Cruz, 29.

Up until now, the only Cyrus I had ever met was my English 1A crush. While it's not a common name, I knew that there were probably many more guys in the world named Cyrus. But how many of them lived in Santa Cruz and were the same age as me? It couldn't be the same Cyrus, could it?

It was.

After many more e-mails, and an eventual phone call, we met for coffee at my favorite cafe in Soquel. That was one year ago today.

Even if it did take me over a decade to call him, I am extremely glad that I finally did. I feel incredibly lucky that I've been able to spend the past year with this amazing person that I never get tired of. He tells me stories about living in other countries, driving a taxi, and teaching English to Germans. He can make me laugh and smile even when I'm feeling my worst. I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world. Even though he's probably going to tease me about this 'not calling him' thing for a long, long time...it's completely worth it.