“He’s Not My Type” Could Be “The One”

by Leslie Bennetts

Jeremy and I celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary last summer; our children are now 17 and 14. We share an apartment, a dog, a large mortgage, and a life so intricately intertwined that I long ago ceased to be able to imagine a separate existence. My heart still leaps every time I hear his voice on the phone.

When I talk to younger friends, they often tell me about men they’ve rejected after one date. “He’s not my type,” they insist. “There was no chemistry.” If I urge them to keep an open mind, they snort derisively and assure me that they know what they’re talking about.

But I don’t believe them—the first night I spent with Jeremy showed me that I knew approximately as much about discerning chemistry as I do about nuclear physics— and I feel sad for what they might be missing. There may well be such a thing as love at first sight; I know people who claim to have experienced it, although the ensuing relationships rarely lasted over the long haul.

And when I think about my friends, I realize that every single one who’s in a stable, longterm marriage is wed to a man she initially claimed was not her type.

Now, it’s possible that my friends and I are particularly obtuse. But I think perhaps there are other lessons here as well. A successful relationship is the product of many factors; compatibility is certainly one of them. But timing is equally critical. You not only have to want the same things; you have to want them at the same time. My boyfriend before Jeremy was an infamous womanizer. He was in his forties when we met; a year and a half later, when I realized he wasn’t remotely ready to settle down, I broke up with him. He was in his sixties when he finally got married—to a woman half his age.