Facebook recently reminded me that my newly minted husband and I have been “friends” for seven years. It made me laugh. Alex is my best friend – yet you couldn’t find two more opposite personalities. How on earth did this happen?

Eleanor and Alex

No technology glitch or computer crash phases Alex. He calmly sets out to trouble shoot with the confidence that he – or Apple support – can fix pretty much everything. I would no more know how to troubleshoot my iPhone than change the oil in my car. And I’m just about as interested. Which is to say, not at all.

We met at the Eagles Hall on Park Street in Alameda one November night in 2012. I had just returned to Zydeco dancing after a long absence while I was rehabilitating a frozen shoulder. When Alex approached, I had a dim memory of seeing him at other dances before my injury, because he wore a fedora and was tall and thus, noticeable.

The band was thumping, the accordion singing its nasal but irresistible melody, the bass and drums booming out the rhythm, and the rubboard accenting the down beat. The Zydeco Flames were playing that night, and Lloyd Meadows soulful, smoldering voice and his infectious smile drew dancers to the floor in droves.

“May I have this dance,” Alex asked. I nodded. He took my hand and led me to the center of the wooden dance floor.

When he took me in his arms and held me at just the right distance from his body, I instantly felt reassured. He waited a few beats and then with his hand squarely on my back led me into a solid two-step. Zydeco is a step, step, hold. You can add a rock step, and with a new partner, that is helpful because you can quickly get into a groove, knowing when you can pause and pull back.

After starting in closed position, Alex spun me out in a turn, and to my relief kept hold of me so that I didn’t fly out of control; he brought me back in after one spin. He dropped his hand and we moved into open position, where the follower can freelance a bit, still staying in rhythm with the leader. We were in sync! It felt wonderful.

“That was fun,” I said at the end of the song.

“Care for another?”

“Delighted,” I said.

At the end of the next dance, a Cajun-style waltz, Alex kissed my hand and returned me to the table where I had been sitting.

“May I call you some time,” he asked. I nodded. He handed me a business card.

“Helping computers play nicely with people for 25 years,” I read at the bottom.

A few days later, I received a LinkedIn message. Alex didn’t text, or phone, or ask to friend me on Facebook. Instead he gave me a window into his work history, his network, his interests: Rotary International (he was a long-time member), The Commonwealth Club, City Arts and Lectures. In his message he asked if I’d read the latest book by Malcom Gladwell

and if I subscribed to The New Yorker.

After that, we became regular dance partners. Shortly before Christmas, he asked me out for dinner and a movie. Alex began sending me poems each morning via text. They were mostly Japanese love poems, short, haiku style. I was charmed. We proceeded slowly, but after several months became a couple.

We dated until September 2013, when Alex abruptly decided we should part. I didn’t understand why, but I accepted his assertion that he was unhappy, and we separated.

After a period of mourning, we continued dancing together, remained friends, and Alex kindly assisted me with numerous computer problems. Over the years we exchanged suggestions for books and kept up with each other’s news. One night while dancing with Alex something moved me to apologize for anything I might have done or said that led to our breakup.

A few months later, I had an iPhone crash and Alex came to my rescue. We began talking about the reasons for our breakup and concluded it had been a dreadful mistake! In January of 2018 we again became a couple.

“I guess we just weren’t ready in our early sixties,” I told him.

We’ve been married for four months now, a virtual eyeblink. You could say the marriage is the icing on the cake, or the butter on the bread. The friendship began with a shared love of dancing and books and deepened into mutual respect and love, a more intimate kind of friendship. As a younger woman I didn’t know myself well enough to make wise choices. If we had met in our thirties or forties, Alex probably wouldn’t even have appeared on my radar. As it was, I’d been single for almost three decades when we met – long enough to appreciate the calm companionship I find with my husband.

Should I be sad that it took us so long for us to find each other? Or that we almost lost each other during our interregnum? Or that we’ll never celebrate a golden anniversary? Not on your life. These days I focus on the miraculous synchronicity that, against all odds,

brought us together again.