Our First Date and Our First Real Date (2nd in a series celebrating our 10th anniversary)
Posted By Kathleen David on May 22, 2011
DragonCon 1997 was a busy one for me. I was helping out with tech as I passed the whole shooting match over to Bill Harrison. I had been tech chair for a number of years for the convention. I was also helping out some friends who were dealers and had some puppets in the Art Show. We were at the Apparel Mart Conference Center at the time with various tracks back at the hotels so I was doing a lot of running around. Peter was down for the convention with his daughter Gwen. He was the MC of the Masquerade that year. He was dressed up as Moses and Gwen as Cleopatra. He did his usual splendid job. During the break he came up to me back at the tech table and told me that he wanted to talk to me. We compared schedules and decided to meet up before the Babylon 5 panel or at the end of the panel due to time.
We managed to meet and he asked if I could walk with him because they were on their way to the airport. I said yes. He told me very quickly since we didn’t have a lot of time because I had to get back to strike that he and his then wife were separated and he wanted to see if I was interested in dating at some point. I was thunderstruck at the information that he and his wife has separated because that was probably the last thing I expected to hear from him so I wasn’t processing the dating part.
Thank goodness for AOL Instant Messenger. We connected there and chatting about things. He invited me to come up to attend the Marvel Christmas Party with him. I wasn’t doing a show at the time so I went. This was our first date. We went there with Jo Duffy. It was quite crowded with Marvel writers, artists, and editors. I met a lot of new people and said hello to some very old friends. I got watch John Byrne, Chris Clairmont, and Peter have a debate about the direct market with other people hopping in and out of the conversation. I met Bobby Chase who was Peter’s editor on the Hulk at the time. It was a lot of fun. I had to go back pretty much the next day because I was starting rehearsal for the next show I was stage-managing. So it was a rather whirlwind visit. We left with the knowledge that we got along in person as well if not better than on the Internet.
Our next date came out of Peter doing a signing at the comic book shop I was working for at the time. We had arranged that I could take the weekend off and we went to Disney World together for the first time. This was sort of the make or break date since it was going to be just us without fans or fellow pros or a convention to distract us.
We had a great time and he re-introduced me to the Adventurer’s Club on Pleasure Island. We spent every night we were there at the club watching the shows and just enjoying each other’s company. We wandered around the various parks showing each other things we liked about Disney and found ourselves showing each other the things that we both liked. We rode the Haunted House a number of times along with Pirates of the Caribbean. We got to know each other a lot better and wanted to make a go of it as boyfriend and girlfriend.
Next the Proposal from my point of view
I am grateful for AOL had IMs which made it possible for us to get to know each other.
Comments