His name Is robert

He is The-man-I-almost-married.

Let me tell you a story:

Well over a year ago, I went to a service project with my friend Jenny. It was a Saturday morning and there was the promise of free breakfast if we cleaned a day care center with about 20 other young adults.

Jenny was a little bit obsessed with marriage. It's Utah Valley. You get people like that here.

During this service project, she told me that we were going to find my future husband that day. She immediately began scoping out prospects. She narrowed in on a fairly attractive young man - dark hair, strong jaw, kind eyes with a hidden laugh - and started scheming. She even managed to get us to speak to each other during the cleaning spree.

I asked him for the vacuum cleaner when he was done with it. He misheard me and showed up without the vacuum. I asked him to go back and get it.

Oh, I was such a flirt, I know.

Afterwards we all signed a huge poster with a description of how we contributed to the cleaning project next to our names. After he signed, Jenny inconspicuously sauntered over to see what his name was. That's how I know his name is Robert.

He misspelled "vacuum" and "cupboards."

I wasn't sure if I was comfortable with letting good looks outweigh a somewhat troubling spelling defect. ("cupboard" is a compound word - how do you not know that? that's third grade, man. how did that not make a lasting impression on your young and malleable brain?)

The plan was to find a way to get Robert and I together, even though we had barely spoken to one another and we had no way of contacting him. We didn't even have enough information about him to tentatively facebook-stalk him.

I decided to leave it to Jenny. I had other things to think about that night.

That night was my first date with My-now-husband.

So in a way, Jenny was right. I met my Mr. Right that day...just not at the service project.

I rarely see Robert now and we've never spoken since that day. I happened to see him today. He was singing in a choir (really amazing, beautiful choir. I got goosebumps. they sounded gorgeous) and I realized how bizarre it would be if he knew that I still think of him as The-man-I-almost-married.

That title is not even close to being accurate. We were nowhere close to being married. He has no idea what my name is or that my friend had developed an elaborate romantic scheme around him.
But the title makes me chuckle. The memory is more about Jenny, really, than it ever was about Robert.

It made me wonder, though, how many of us attach memories and stories to people who don't know us?
It's nearly unsettling when you think about all the unreciprocated thoughts bouncing between anonymous people in a crowd.
We don't really know each other at all. We know quite a bit more than we let on.