Love Stories: Myla and Joe

 Joe and I met in 2013. 

He was the sales manager at the car dealership where I’d bought my car, so I would run into him whenever I was getting work done. I thought he was pretty cute from the minute I saw him. We always chatted while the work was being done.

Last April I was getting new tires put on the car. Again, we were talking like old friends.  I mentioned that I’m an artist. He pulled up my website and saw all my equine pieces. I was so surprised when he told me he used to have horses in California.

Two hours later, the car had been done long before, and we were still talking.  At that point he was called out of the office. I probably should have left but decided to make a sketch of a horse for him. It was a simple scribble on a yellow Post It note but it gave me an excuse to stay for just a few minutes until he came back so I could say goodbye.

I went home thinking that we'd really hit it off and there was some spark but then I didn't hear from him. I didn't really expect to but still.… He had my home phone number from the work order so I figured if he wanted to call he knew how to find me.

Two weeks later, I was fooling around with this app I have on my iPod, which is for my landline and TV, and I saw there was a text on it. I figured that Comcast was spamming me with texts so I almost deleted without reading it. Then I got curious, opened it and was floored to find it was from Joe! He said he'd so enjoyed our conversation and wanted to know if I'd go out with him some time. When I read those words I squealed and did a little dance around the living room but my joy was short lived.

I saw the date on the text was from TWO WEEKS AGO. Just OMG.

I have to admit that I am a texting newbie. I didn't have a cell phone that was text enabled and this was my very first incoming text and for a date no less! Aaack!!! I was sure I'd already blown it. CRAP!

After some desperate fiddling around, I figured out how to text him back and wrote, Hi Joe! I'm so sorry, I just found your text. I enjoyed chatting with you too and would love to go out with you some time.

Then I held my breath and hit send.

I didn't sign it since I ASSumed he would know it was coming from me as a reply to his text. On my app it shows both sides of the conversation so I thought his was like that too. WRONG. LOL.
He had long ago deleted the text he’d sent when there was no reply. Then, out of the blue, he gets this text from a strange number, with no name, telling him she loved chatting with him and would love to go out with him. He couldn't figure out who it was.

Can you imagine what must have been going through his mind? He works in sales at a car dealership and sees so many women going through there on a daily basis. Insert eye roll here.

So he called me. I didn't realize he didn't know who he was calling because my name wasn't in the text.

He said, Hey, my name is Joe Scobel, and I just got a text from someone at this number, and I have no idea who you are.

GAWD I almost hung up, I felt soooooo stoooopid. I thought, Wow, I really left an impression on this guy. NOT! My face was beet red!

The stammering and awkward confusion between us is really funny now but I felt like a gawky teenager in that moment.

I gulped and told him who I was and asked if he remembered talking when I got the car work done. He was so happy to hear from me and remembered me as the chatty artist who'd given him the horse sketch.

I then told him he had texted my landline and I had just found his text, by accident, through the app on my iPod. We dissolved into laughter and just howled about the pitfalls of dating through modern technology. We're both in our late fifties and sometimes forget we're not still living in the '70s. Dating is still every bit as awkward!

He said, when he didn't hear back from me, that he thought I just wasn't interested and was blowing him off. I never told him I'd had a crush on him since the day I'd met him and would always try to run into him when I was there.

 After several nights of phone confabs we went out on our first date—a traditional dinner and movie. It was a wonderful evening. The movie, The Longest Ride, was ironically about a cowboy and an art lover and the dispersal of an incredible art collection. We really connected to it and talked for hours after.  For the next week, every night, we spent hours on the phone.

Since I was living alone, and hadn't dated in over ten years, I was really cautious. I would meet him at either a shopping center or some other public place.

One afternoon he invited me to dinner at his place. Imagine my surprise when I saw the tiny sketch I'd made for him hanging on the wall! He'd saved it and told me how it had touched him. He said he'd kept it at the car dealership for some time remembering our conversations and, when he thought he wasn't going to hear back from his text to me, he took the drawing home and put it on his wall.

When modern technology failed, that little sketch played such a big part in bringing us together. He later told me that he had come right back when he was called out of the office and spotted me making that drawing so just peeked around the corner quietly watching. Something happened to us both in that moment that neither of us was aware of but there's no denying the bond that it forged and on which we continue to build.
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You can view more of Myla’s awesome work at HalfFastFarms.net and on Faeebook at Half Fast Farms Studio.