OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

My wife said my last post wasn't really to her taste. So let me tell you about the real one, the one who didn't get away, the one I was looking for in the first place.

"I've been married three times," says the old man, "because there was no need for more." My third wife and I, believe it or not, met through a dating service. A dating service where you pay for a certain number of introductions and your membership is for life.

My wife is still entitled to 6 introductions, should she ever desire to go back. I have 42 remaining. As you can see, I certainly didn't expect to "hit paydirt" on the 6th.

I called her on a day in November shortly before Thanksgiving. I knew she had blue eyes and blonde hair, was in her early forties, one kid at home in high school, but little more than that. We arranged to meet and even then, just talking to her on the phone, I knew I wanted to see her more than once (that hadn't happened with the other 5).

We met at Victoria Station. I was wearing a pinstipe blue suit (back in the days before I decided that I wasn't a suit kind of guy). We (or I should say I) talked for 3 hours over glasses of wine. I'm normally very quiet, but when I get nervous I am verbose. She, on the other hand, was working as a "head hunter" and talked to people all day so she was content to just listen.

I joke that what I remember most about that night was that the dress she was wearing wouldn't stay closed very well at the top and she had to keep adjusting it. Anyway, I talked and talked, mostly about my children, something I was sure bored her to death. Turned out she liked that. You see, her childrens' father didn't really show his love for her boys and I did for mine. That was an important test, the first of many.

I was so thrilled to be with her I completely forgot that we were supposed to eat. And she, for some reason, didn't remind me. Time just flew by so fast for me that suddenly it was late and we had to leave. We had discussed how men on a first date will frequently say they'll call and then never do so. BUT what could I say when we parted? I wanted to see her again so I had to say, "I'll call you." I think she might have been a little less than thrilled with that parting.

Anyway, Thanksgiving came. My divorce was recently finalized and I was home alone. Had a steak and watched movies by myself all day long. But on Friday I called.

She was putting up wallpaper in her bathroom (she had finally, after 6 years, decided that she was going to be alone the rest of her life and that she could have pink paper in her bathroom if she wanted), and said she had to call me back. Now it was me wondering if SHE meant it.

She invited me over to her house as she was babysitting her niece's baby on the night I invited her out for. I could have been an axe-murderer for all she knew, but she did it anyway. Well, wine, cheese and crackers, movies and the night flew by, except I kept her up way too late.

Within a week I put my introductions on hold. It took her a little longer. I found that I couldn't wait until I saw her next. She kissed me first (have I mentioned that at heart I've very shy?) and it was all I could do not to cheer out loud as I left her condo.

Anyway, by Christmas I was in love as I had never been before. And I think she felt the same way. The only way I could describe it was that I felt like I was a teenager again. I never wanted anyone as much as I wanted her. I went home to visit my family in New Mexico that Christmas and my sister, to this day, complains about how love-sick I was. Remember, I was 44 years old and had been married 2 times.

On Valentine's day, 1987, I proposed. In Big Boy's restaurant, yet. Didn't really have the nerve to ask her by voice so I wrote it in her valentine. Not surprisingly, she said yes. I say not surprisingly because she had once made the comment: "Did you know that my ring size is exactly the same as my shoe size?" Oh, yes, then there was the time we had been in a jewelry story and she showed me which ring she wanted. My wife was very good at hinting what she wanted. :)

We were married in November of that year, swearng we would give ourselves a year to "make sure." And we did. We both later confessed that we had deliberately set forth all kinds of tests for the other. And we were both surprised that the other kept passing those tests.

Tests like "If I say I don't want to go to the party with her, will she get so mad that she doesn't want me anymore?" Or "If I say I want to go and do something without him, will he be so jealous that he'll break up with me?" All things that went back to our previous marriages.

That marriage was 16 years ago and we've never looked back. Although we may not be as demonstrative as we once were (her younger son once called us "disgusting"), we still love each other with our whole hearts, have so become one that we can't imagine life as two. To her I will always be the "king" she married and she will always be the "angel" I married. To me she will always be that beautiful woman I married on that day in November so many years ago.

So, you see, it doesn't really matter how or where you meet. It's what you feel after you do, what you're willing to do for them, and what they're willing to do for you.