Cupid’s Persistence: A Valentine Story

Natalie, a young psychologist, comes back to Vilnius, Lithuania, having spent a year in India. Her job is gone; her old friends have moved on to other places, new lives. She can’t locate them, is jobless, & finds herself alone & lonely. Her parents are in another city. I live in Vilnius at the time, but Natalie & I do not know each other—yet.

Looking for possible employment or to at least meet some professional colleagues, Natalie drops by the Lithuanian Conflict Resolution Center. The job situation is not good, but there is an interesting guy who’s relatively new to the country whom she might be interested in meeting. He too is a traveler. She is given my name & contacts me. Always interested in meeting people & making new friends, especially those with similar interests & in my profession, I invite her for a walk along the river that flows through town.

Near the end of our walk, I disappoint her with the news that any possible friendship will have to wait for I already have a ticket in hand for a return to the U$ for a year or 2.

With Lithuania having been part of the Soviet Empire & behind the Iron Curtain until just a few years earlier, I know that their libraries lack many original writings of the more current psychologists, so Natalie is delighted when I invite her to look through my extensive library to borrow whatever she might care to read while I’m away. She takes up the offer & returns with her dad’s car in a few days & picks out a couple boxes of books. I’m glad that they won’t be just collecting dust while I’m away, & that someone will get some use out of them.

We exchange a few letters, but my time away stretches to 3 years during which both our e-mail addresses & phone numbers change & we lose touch with one another. Upon returning, I cross off as hopelessly lost the 2 boxes of books borrowed by Natalie, for I am unable to locate her.

3 years would try the most patient matchmaker, but not Cupid; he is not done emptying his quiver. He takes another shot a couple of years later when I publish my 1st book, one on conflict resolution & in Lithuanian. Natalie’s mom, while not knowing me from Adam, reads a review of my conflict resolution book in a Lithuanian newspaper & gets an idea of how she might help salvage her daughter’s failing relationship with her current boyfriend. Both the mom & Natalie’s entire extended family really like the guy with whom Natalie is involved, so the mom goes out & buys a copy of my book. When Natalie comes to visit, her mom slams my book on the table & tells Natalie to patch things up with her boyfriend.

Natalie picks up the book, notices my name, & jumps up excited, “I know the author. I’ve got 2 boxes of his psychology books. Thanks, Mom!”

Finding my new e-mail address in the book, she writes to me; we reconnect & get together over lunch. Upon seeing each other that 2nd time 5 years after the 1st brief encounter, it is love at 1st sight for us both. By the 2nd date we are already going steady & are shortly after living together.

Cupid travels in various guises & in mysterious ways, so beware, for you never know where or when he might ambush you with one of his special arrows.

Ouch! But such sweet pain.

© Vytas Stoskus, 2023 www.stoskus.net/en/

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