when love comes in sideways
- Anne Catlin
- Aug 9
- 6 min read
I’m going to tell you a story about a special person in my life that will probably embarrass him. But it’s so good and I’m Irish (we tell stories) so here we go.
When my relationship of 15 years ended last April 2025 I was in a hard place. After 27 years of committed relationships and motherhood, I hadn’t really “dated,” before. I had high school boyfriends and love interests but had never really dated.
I was curious, but I was also trepidatious. I don’t especially trust straight men and I wasn’t looking for a hook up or a relationship or anything like that. I mainly wanted to hang out with someone cute who I could swim with and hold hands and maybe dance and sometimes kiss. That seemed right. I needed social practice. So I went on “the Tinder,” and paid the $15 or whatever to be “incognito” so I could scout my options without being bothered by anyone or mistakenly bumping into someone I or my ex knows. We live on an island after all.
It was underwhelming. I spent maybe 15 minutes looking at profiles and they were all the same people you see around town. Nothing super interesting. I was about to delete the app and then there he was — the most beautiful man ever. Tall, dark and handsome, he looked like he was born from the sea. His profile didn’t have much info on it, so I deleted the app and found him on Instagram.
I slid into his DMs and think I said something like, “I’m 10 seconds out of a 15 year relationship and I’m not looking for a hookup or anything, but would you be interested in diving sometime at the harbor (stranger danger).” He was in amazing shape and always at the beach and I could tell right away he was a water guy.
I was wrong. Homeboy wasn’t even a Pacific Islander. I would learn that he’s black and Native American and from Minnesota, and that he isn’t terribly comfortable in the water. He was also freshly out of a long relationship and just curious, not looking for anything. And he declined to go swimming with me, or meet me at all, for over a year.
I’m not the kind of person to give up on a good opportunity, so I continued to chat with him and thus ensued a penpalship of sorts. He has one of the most well developed tastes in music I had ever heard, and is super smart and cute and funny. We appeared to share similar political frustrations and are tight with the LGBTQ community.
When my brother died I called him from Skid Row in downtown LA to keep me company while I walked around. He freaked out, he was like, “why are you putting yourself in danger?!?!” I said, “I’m not, my grampa ran a homeless mission down here (The Los Angeles Midnight Mission) and my brother was homeless down here for years. I have to do this. Just keep me company because it's a little sketchy.” So he did.
When I got back to Hawaii I asked him to meet me at MyBar in Kona. I had a pile of LED leis and Tiki shot glasses tethered to Mardi Gras beaded necklaces left over from my sister’s bachelorette party in Hollywood for Weho. Who better to give them to, than the comedy crew and gays? He declined to meet me with the excuse of work in the morning. “What is your deal?” I said indignantly. “You’re 6’4”, I’m 5’2”, it's an innocuous place. What the hell are you afraid of?” He disagreed that he was afraid.
Then in walked two flamboyantly gay men, arm-in-arm, wearing bright, multicolored aloha shirts. They were like, “Hey Girrrrrl!!!” I was like, “Oh no, I’m not available,” and one said, “well heeeey unavailable!!!” It turned out that he was the cousin of my best dive friend of the last 8 years, and that he wasn’t gay (he was with his bestie) and his name was Kyle Yamaguchi.
My life got pretty complicated after that and I was cranky and impatient and pretty hard on men in general. I had a lot of sparky things to say. My tall, dark and handsome Instagram penpal stopped following me and we lost touch.
After some time in Los Angeles to regroup, I returned to Hawaii and gradually started to reach out to old contacts and make amends. Like, “sorry about last year, it was a hard year, can we try again?” My penpal was one of them, and he generously responded, “sure, that’s understandable,” despite never having met me in person and being seemingly terrified of me.
Thus continued our vague penpalship – usually me reaching out and him thumbsupping things, him being one of the first people to look at my instagram and some shared musical interests.
Around the same time I decided to get more candid with my writing. I thought, I’ve been so professionally curated and now I’ve lost everything I ever worked for. Might as well go balls-out artist and just say what comes to mind. My penpal read some of the things I wrote (I think) and seemed to grow more comfortable with me over time.
I knew I’d bump into him at some point. We live in a small town where everyone knows everyone. If it wasn’t for mutual friends, I’d almost say I was being catfished based on how incredibly hot this guy is. But no, he’s a real person and that’s really how he looks.
Then one day I was at the gym, in an argument with my dad and tearful and taking out my feelings on the gym equipment. And guess who walks in? Mr tall, dark and handsome. I was like, “Why universe? Why now? What the actual fuck?!”
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to him, or if I’d say anything at all. I wasn’t in the mood to get shut down, and I wasn’t about to chase a dude. He didn’t see me and went straight to the bathroom and I went to shower and change, get ready for work slowly, clean out my car. I took my sweet ass time, still undecided. Then I came back into the gym with my Frida Kahlo notebook and thought, if I see him right away I’ll say something, but I’m not hunting around.
There he was, right in front of me, on an ab machine I have no respect for. Like, why not just get on the floor and do some goddam situps? I walked up to him with a look of vindication on my face. This dude was going to have to deal with me in real life. What now, bitch?
He clocked me maybe 3 or 4 feet away. His voice cracked when he startled and said, “Oh hi!!”
I looked at him. I smirked. I didn’t say anything. I just wrote something down on my notepad, tore off the paper and dropped it on the equipment in front of his face and left without a goddam word. I won. Gangster af.
The paper said simply: “WTF” with my phone number. I knew he wouldn’t call. I was just making the point. Though he continued to watch and like my instagram stories and keep in half-assed contact.
Then about a month ago, homeboy hits me up out of the blue and was like, “what are you doing today?” I was amused and surprised. I said, “Why? You want to hang out?” and he says, “yes.” Whaaaaaat?!?!?! Kyle was planning to make an amazing French culinary masterpiece to impress a young, Taiwanese Freediver he had met at the beach so I said he should join us, not believing for a minute that he would. And guess what? He did, and we were instantly friends.
He said he was going through some of his own life stuff and asked if I’d like to be his dance partner for some Salsa Dancing lessons. Hell yes!!! I said that I would only if he agreed to also go to West Coast Swing, and only after paddling regatta season wrapped up. In the meantime we put on some YouTube videos and spent about 10 minutes practicing a couple tutorials. Neither of us know what we’re doing.
Now he is my sweetest, cutest, funnest, dance partner. Homeboy is easy on the eyes and it's so fun to walk around with him as arm candy, everyone’s jaw just drops. And he’s a solid fucking guy.
He also is slow to warm and doesn’t say “I love you,” to people very often. But he tells me he loves me (you know I said it first, the poor guy). I’m more like, “life is short, love who you love and say it often while you still have time. He seemed to tolerate that.
He’s my bestie and my brother and I love him, and I actually get tearful with how much I enjoy dancing with him because he’s such a good dancer and doesn’t believe it. I’m just like, “look at you, you’re the cutest boy in the land.”
Now I’m in love with someone else, and he’s doing what he does, and we just love each other. And I’m so grateful to have him in my life I could just cry. And he’s single by the way ladies, and he really is the total catch. So hit me up if you want to go dancing! I’ll be his wingman to the end, and I’m the lucky one.
