The Night We Met

Veronica and I first met while earning our MBAs at the University of Notre Dame. Though I had noticed her earlier in a class we shared, it wasn’t until the night of a charity gala that our paths finally crossed.We met at an afterparty for the event in a dive bar just off campus named The Linebacker. Neither of us could’ve imagined that this place, known for wild nights and 32 ounce beers, would be where we meet the love of our lives.

I introduced myself to Veronica, and we quickly realized that our paths had long been intertwined, yet never converged. We grew up in the same town, Palo Alto, and both left for college in Los Angeles—she at UCLA, I at CSU Northridge. We’d worked in entertainment, then education. After graduation, we were both bound for San Francisco, she to study law and I to start a new job in consulting. Time and again, we had drifted past each other like ships in the night, only to finally arrive at the same harbor. Our first conversation felt less like an introduction and more like a reunion: we knew we had a special connection.