Marty and I resumed hosting dinner parties over the summer. This is something we used to do with great regularity before having kids. Now that they are grown and more busy, we are slowly working to reinstate the practice. For me it is in no way about the food on the table but the conversations around it that make these evenings special. Here is one of the more memorable morsels from this summer where a friend, John, shared the story of how he first met his wife, Sole.

The were both architecture students. He was in his last year and she in her first. He saw her talking at an information counter and when she walked away, he approached the counter-woman, whom he knew.

Can I ask who that was?

That girl who was just here?

Yes.

Soledad.

Sole-uh-what?

Soledad.

Soledad.

No. You’re saying it wrong. Soledad.

Soledad.

Still wrong. Soledad.

Can you say it slower?

Slower? Why slower?

Because I’m a white guy from New Jersey. You gotta help me here.

So he practiced the name for days but out of fear of botching his initial impression, opted to make first contact through a note, which he taped to the window of a classroom door where he knew, through his recon, she had class—this took place well before cell phones or even email. She accepted his offer of coffee and they had their first date on a Monday.

They saw each other again Wednesday and then went to a school-related party on Friday. When it was time to leave they found themselves in a room picking through piled up coats looking for their own. It was next to this heap of winter frocks where they shared their first kiss.

As for her side of the tale, she was dating a guy who had just left the country to teach english. For a few reasons, she had questions about his viability as a long-term partner. Then she saw John present to all the students at a school event (remember he was in his last year and she in her first) and thought to herself, now that’s the kind of guy I should be with. He looks like he’s going somewhere. And then a few short months later saw a note from him taped to her classroom door.

Here we are decades and a few children later and I am always happy to see them in the foyer of my home at the start of a fresh visit.

Oh, one last noteworthy bit. When John first met Sole’s parents, he looked through the local hipster paper for suggestions of what to do. A new foreign film was talked up as taking the festivals by surprise. He stabbed it with his finger in success, feeling this would surely impress Sole’s international parents. What he did not know and what the paper did not share is that the film opened with a horrific and graphic rape scene that spanned the first seven minutes. Though had you asked John how long the scene played out, he would have guessed it lasted the full 86 minute run-time.