>>143067312I met Melynda Reid in 1995, and it was love at first sight.
We met at a conference about computers and ethics at the Brookings Institution which had invited both of us to speak. I did not know of her before I met her there, but she was prepared in advance to dislike me. As always, I asked the conference to pay my air fare. Melynda had also asked for her air fare, but the conference only had funds for one speaker's travel, so accepting my request meant refusing hers. She blamed me for not getting her travel funded.
She changed her mind when she met me. She heard my footsteps approaching in the corridor and found them intriguing. (I have a vague memory that I ran down the corridor in 7/8 time.) Thus, when I entered the hall, she looked at me with interest. I saw her looking at me, so I assumed we had met before and struggled uselessly to recall where
During the conference lunch I sat next to her and introduced myself. That is when we started to fall in love. After that day's session was done, I invited her to have dinner with me. We talked at length, and then I walked her to her hotel.
We did not become lovers. I didn't fancy her, and she didn't want sex outside marriage. We were fascinated with each other without sex. So I thought of her as my childhood sweetheart, the idea being you're never too old to have one.