How it went: We met in 2004 at an anti-George Bush rally held at Martuni’s, a gay bar in San Francisco. I wasn’t there to meet a woman, but to donate some time and money to defeat George Bush.

I noticed her right away sitting at the bar. I though she was beautiful and way out of my league.

A gay guy was sitting next to her at the bar and apparently wondering why there were so many straight people there, got up to leave. I sat down next to her on her left.

Turns out she didn’t know the woman to her right with whom she was conversing and wasn’t interested in the short, bald guy standing behind her and trying to hit on her.

She was not there for the rally. She is apolitical and not a US citizen. She was there to meet her girlfriend and go to dinner somewhere else. But her girlfriend’s car broke down.

We talked and discovered we were both involved in Market Research. Her qualitative. Me quantitative. As they say, opposites attract.

I should have believed her when she joked “I’m an only child. I don’t share well”. But I was an only child too. Both of us were raised by single mothers. Both of us were unplanned.

We both had suffered early childhood trauma due to our absent and uninvolved fathers. Neither of us was aware of the trauma when we met or throughout our relationship.

It took me a lot of therapy after the breakup to discover and deal with my early childhood trauma. Which opened the door to forgiveness towards my mother and her.

It was after 11 PM and we’d been talking for three or four hours. She was tired and had to leave to walk her dog but gave me her phone number without my asking for it. Told me I should call her some time. 7 days later, I did and the rest as they say is history.