December 31, 2006

You know the phrase, you hear it a million times when you are single. Your parents, your sisters and brothers, and your closest friends have told you this: "You'll meet that special someone when you least expect it".

In Los Angeles, quite possibly the world's "most active dating town", and the world's "hardest to date anyone town", it's pretty easy to disbelieve that "fate and chance"
will bring love right into your arms. I know I never believed it, until I met Jackie.

Before Dec 31, 2006, I had hit rock bottom after 2+ years of JDate, Eharmony, HotOrNot (j/k!) and countless "LA Girl" date failures while working 60+ hour weeks for 3 years at EA (though I loved every second of it), while Jackie had long been pursuing her graduate degree to become a Lawyer and starting to prep for the Bar Exam. What Jackie and I never knew is that our lives had been connected ever since I stepped on the campus of UCSD and into a 3D art class, even though Jackie was far away at UCLA and had no idea I even existed.

In quick summary, that fateful series of events that led to our first meeting on New Years Eve, Dec. 31st, 2006 went something like this (imagine me reading this extremely fast): Year 2000, I took a 3D art class freshmen year at UCSD, I met a wonderful girl named Cathy Yeh in that class, we became great classmates and soon casual friends on campus. Cathy grew up in Pacific Palisades and met Jackie on the playground in elementary school, they became best friends, but went to separate colleges. 2004, LA post-grad, I moved in with Scott Friedman, close friend-fraternity brother-now-my-groomsman, Scott was good friends with a girl named Su Pak from UCSD, and it happened that Cathy was also good friends with Su, but I never met Su at UCSD. Now jump 3 years later to the night of Dec 31, 2006, New Years Eve. Su is throwing a New Years Eve party at the Arsenal and invites Scott, I'm feeling down in the dumps about "dating", so what better way to celebrate than throw on a cheesy Hawaiian shirt for the "LoveBoat Theme", drink and be merry. At Su's party at the Arsenal, I see Cathy, OMG haven't seen you in 3 years and you live in LA, small world! Cathy brought her best friend, Jackie, to this party and the rest, as they say is history. Well as fate would have it, we met when we least expected it, at a bar on New Years in LA via small-world-mutual-friends. And yes, that photo is from the night we first met, my goatee and her short hair, two things that haven't come back since.

Jackie gave me her number that night, we went on our first date a week later, and 6 months after that, at the Hollywood Bowl during a John Williams concert, I said "I Love You" for the first time.

Everyone that always told me, "it'll happen when you least expect it and not looking hard", I admit, you were right, somehow love does find YOU. I'm just forever thankful the love of my life fell in to my arms at just the right time. And now, she'll tell you how this fairy-tale is about to live on in matrimony...

Click here to read "A Proposal Made in Brooklyn" ~ by Jackie