My Future Husband(s)

Today I was looking at my friends’ pics on facebook, when suddenly I came across an album of pics from Mali.  When I think of Mali, I can’t help but think of one person:  My Future Husband #1

I can’t remember how my friends and I came up with the term, but it stuck.  Have you ever met a man and just clicked?  All the elements of a great friendship, if not relationship, are there: the witty banter stemming from a shared sense of humor, the basic demographics of woman seeking meets man offering, an odd familiarity even though you don’t know the first thing about each other . . .maybe one or both of you was ignoring the signs. . .but everyone else knew that someday, somehow, you two would get together. . .until. . .you didn’t.

My (non) relationship with My Future Husband #1 was pretty strange.  We never kissed, and truthfully, we never even really hung out just the two of us.  Maybe because we travelled in the same tightly-knit social circle, we assumed that if it was meant to be, fate would make it happen.

But it never did.  The timing was wrong.  Our schedules were conflicting.  One of us was just beginning a relationship, while the other was ending one.

In fact, the whole situation with My Future Husband #1 was so bizarre, I may have just left Zimbabwe and forgotten the whole thing. . .except for a drunken confessional on his part, that went something exactly along the lines of:

“You had a baby with the wrong black man!”

The wrong black man meaning Mr. Mufasa, the father of my baby and the man who would later become my husband. . .the innuendo suggesting that the right black man would have been. . .him?

A declaration that caused me to promptly head to the bar for another drink.

Two days later, he was on a plane back to Canada.  Three weeks later, Mr. Mufasa, Picklebean, and I were on a plane to England.

And that was that.

Now, whenever I come across the rare treasure of a really good, decent, handsome single man. . .one whom I just know might be good for me in another time, another place. . .I label him: My Future Husband #. . .