Starting the week with an up-beat story

Several of my friends are dating these days. Looking to find a partner in life, they turn to me with questions that I find difficult to answer: should I call him if he hadn’t called me? Should I bother, given the fact that he is shorter than I am? How should I interpret his email behavior, or lack thereof?

Recently everyone has been talking about the book He’s Just Not That Into You. Amidst the cacophony of reactions I hear one that stands out: since the beginning of time, men like to be the chasers. Do not bother calling: if he wants to see you he’ll call back. Add a few other conventional wisdoms: men don’t like smart women and women don’t like short men and you’ve limited your universe of acceptable dating behaviors considerably.

It’s all good advice I’m sure. I mean, what do I know about American men anyway.

Yet, last night, someone pointed me to a true story that breaks from the gaggle of noise about the one right way to date. (You can also find it if you follow the link from the salon.com story on dating short men here.) Sure, you can adhere to the *sound* advice of He’s Just Not That Into You. Or not. Here is an excerpt from a wedding announcement appearing in the New York Times:

The bride and bridegroom met two years ago at a dinner party. It was a few days after Ms. Schonfeld had taken the bar exam, and she was so exhausted that she fell asleep on a couch, awakening only after everyone else had left.

Even asleep, Ms. Schonfeld, stretching to 5-foot-10, made an impression on Mr. Leib. He made an impression, too, not only, she said, because he is ''notably short'' -- he is 5-foot-6 -- but also ''notably smart,'' with a disregard for small talk.

Even when she told him she thought she recognized him from a high school hockey game, she said, he seemed to have his mind on other things. ''I thought it was kind of neat,'' she said.
Mr. Leib acknowledged that he can seem brusque, adding, ''I have a tendency to be that way upon first impression.''

Two months later, through their dinner party host, a date was arranged.
''It seemed almost experimental to date someone who was four inches shorter than me,'' Ms. Schonfeld said with a laugh.

Mr. Leib said he wore his ''tall shoes.'' And as their first date extended to six hours, they discovered they had something in common worth talking about: both had engaged in comically bad behavior in previous relationships.

With that kind of history, Mr. Leib recalled, he was not certain either of them would want a second date.

Rather than call, he sent her an e-mail message, concluding, he said, ''Of course I should never see you,'' and ''of course I'm way too short for you.''

But she was not quite ready to walk away, she said.
''He was so emotionally intelligent about where he was coming from and what he was thinking,'' she noted. ''We were both so incredibly frank with each other. That was quite impressive to me.''

So she called him.

So ends the wedding announcement, so begins their life together. Sweet and unconventional, just the way it should be.