Soulmate Story: Love In a Boston Dive Bar
Just like all other Friday nights in college, this particular evening bubbled over with loud music and celebration for the end of the tiresome week.
While we sipped on cheap beer and sat around our living room, my friends and I bickered about what to do with the rest of our night. Some argued for a dive bar in the next neighborhood over. Others said we should walk to the student bar around the corner. I advocated for the small, rowdy party at the house next door.
“It’s too cold to walk!” they protested, thinking of the chilly October Boston air.
“The Uber to the bar will be so expensive!” I said.
“Will there be a line to get in?” we all wondered.
They decided that the dive bar was the option that promised the most fun, and immediately called an Uber there. As they finished their drinks, I announced that I wasn’t going to go. I had to work in the morning, and taking the trip all the way to Allston just to go to that grimy dive bar might be too much of a hassle for me. They shrugged, turned off the music, and ran to catch their driver outside. But, as that second of silence came over me, I impulsively sprinted after them. I barely caught the car before it pulled away and squished myself into the crowded backseat.
“Change of heart?”
“I guess,” I replied laughing. I would just have to deal with the repercussions of my sudden decision to go to this dive bar in the morning and while being tired (and a bit hungover) at work.
When we got to the dive bar, there was no line. We got lucky that night. We quickly grabbed a round of vodka-crans and scanned the crowded room of dancing, screaming college students in a scene so crowded that, thinking of it now, in a socially-distanced world, makes my skin crawl. As everyone jumped up and down splashed in the beer-soaked floor, I noticed a boy so tall that he stuck up almost a full foot above the crowd.
“That boy is so cute!” I shouted to my friend over the music.
“Oh my god! I know him!” She replied as she grabbed my arm and dragged me over to him. He was talking to a friend, but she promptly interrupted by tapping him on the arm.
“This is my friend, ” she told him, “She is the coolest person I know.”
He laughed awkwardly and with raised eyebrows said, “Well, if she is the coolest person you know, I guess I have to dance with her.”
So, he spun me around and pulled me into the drunken fray of the dance floor. He leaned down to be closer to my height and accidentally put his weight on me in a way that made the dancing more like awkwardly jumping and hugging than anything else. As we sang “Baby!” and the other lyrics from The Middle by Zedd, he stepped on my feet a few times.
After what felt like the most fun hour I had ever had in that disgusting bar, the song ended and he was called away by his friends. He was the grade above me, and easily the tallest, most handsome man I had ever met. Just as he was turning away from me and I was struggling to say something that would allow him to remember me beyond “that girl I danced with last night,” he looked down at me with his gentle chocolate eyes and said, “I guess I should get your phone number.” Giddily, I gave it to him.
Days later, I bumped into him at a football game and followed him on Instagram. He followed me back.
Weeks later, he told me that he didn’t even know who my friend was who introduced us that night. We laughed about her boldness and how random it was that we met.
Months later, he told me that he loved me. I loved him too.
Two years later, he is still the most handsome, tallest man I have ever met, and I can’t believe what began as a random Friday night ended in his unconditional love. I hate to wonder what my life might look like today if I hadn’t impulsively sprinted to that Uber.
Though there are less crowds now, and we have both left college behind us, there is just as much dancing, mostly in the kitchen, and it is still bad. But I don’t mind. When I stand on my tippy toes and he bends down to dance with me, he is the tempo, notes, and lyrics all in one. The music of that sticky, crowded dive bar follows me everyday, as I feel the warmth and light of his kindness, patience, support, and laughter as we move through the world together.
