silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 4

From the moment kyzen8 asked about my mom, it was like opening a floodgate. He obviously knew the key to my heart was my family, and the fact that he cared whether my mom knew about him meant a multitude of bonus points for him.

I don't remember if I had told my mom about him, but I definitely told all my close friends. My roommate endearingly named him the doctor, and that's what we referred to him as amongst all my friends. It was always doctor this, doctor that.

We danced around the topic of meeting up for weeks. Being the girl, I didn't want to come on too strong. But being the conservative and traditional person that he is, kyzen8 didn't feel it was right for him to fly all the way to Boston to meet a girl. Hence we talked about ECASU, a national conference that was to be held in Rhode Island. When that didn't work out, we talked about my research group that focused on technology and health. Since kyzen8 wanted to take a year off to do research, his excuse was to come to Boston to talk to my supervisor.

And so the date was set. March 14, 2003.

A week or two before THE meeting, we decided to chat on the phone. It was horrible. His voice was definitely NOT the voice of prince charming that I was expecting. His Chinese accent was nowhere near what I had imagined. The awkward meter ran off the charts.