"Technically, the first time I saw my boyfriend was on Facebook. I was living in a small town on the Chilean coast and a mutual friend, who lived in Santiago, reached out because two of his friends were moving to the coast and wanted help finding an apartment... He looked confident and cool and I liked the way he wore bright colors. So, of course, I said I would help.

The thing is, I didn’t live in a traditional town. I was living in an eco-village, so I didn’t really have a good idea of what the traditional rental situation was like in the bigger town nearby. But I figured, hey, they speak English. They’re handsome. My roommate and I speak English. We’re cool. So I invited them up to our village for a bonfire.

Ben now claims that the first time we met, I was wandering lost and barefoot in the woods. While that’s a great metaphor for where I was in my life at that time, in reality I saw him the first time on a dusty, rural road with the sun setting behind him. I was barefoot, yes, but I put on shoes to walk in the woods to our fire pit. And, yes, I did end up getting lost, because I was still new there myself and wasn’t totally familiar with the landmarks yet — especially at dusk. So, like most things in our relationship, both of our versions are a little bit right.

Around the fire that night, I wasn’t very impressed with our guests. I thought Ben was arrogant and cocky and he argued with me in ways I wasn’t used to. I’m usually the alpha-human, and Ben was definitely an alpha-male. Later he told me that he thought I was lesbian because I lived in a one bedroom house with a female roommate and two cats. (Once again, we were both sort of right. He is cocky AF and while I wasn’t lovers with my roommate, I’m bisexual. So, you know, 1.5 out of two isn’t bad.)

After we met that first time, I didn’t make much of an effort to see Ben again. But the English-speaking community in that part of Chile is small, and we found ourselves working remotely from the same Starbucks every day. That’s where I first got past the bluster — and he got past the dust I was usually covered with — and we started to see that the other was more interesting than we thought.

That was five and a half years ago. I still think he’s handsome and cocky and now I’d add wonderful to that list of adjectives... We’re an unlikely couple who met in an unlikely way and I’ll always be grateful for that dusty, dusky bonfire one night on the coast of Chile."

Takeaway? You just never know when, where, or how you're going to meet not just someone, but the right one for you. But when you know, you know, as they say, so never close a door on an opportunity for love.

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