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Meant2Be: I loved her first, then him

As a college freshman in Washington, D.C., I met a 22-year-old recent graduate. Let’s call her Molly.
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October 5, 2016

As a college freshman in Washington, D.C., I met a 22-year-old recent graduate. Let’s call her Molly. 

It was 2004, and to my 18-year-old idealistic college self, Molly was perfect. She was a smart, sweet, sophisticated, progressive Californian who worked at a nonprofit.  She was exactly what I aspired to be when I grew up (at age 18, a 22-year-old college graduate is a grown-up).

It was more than a “friend-crush.” I had a plan: Molly was going to be family.

“You must meet my brother,” I would tell her every time I ran into her. “He’s your perfect match.” My brother is a progressive L.A. attorney with a deep love of the Jewish community and a lay-leadership resume that would make a Federation board president jealous. I was convinced Molly and he were Meant2Be.

“That’s so sweet,” she would say. “He sounds nice. … But we live 3,000 miles apart.” She was always good at putting me down nicely, not making me feel like the pest that I’m sure I was.

I reveled in the fantasy of having Molly as a sister-in-law. But like most childhood fantasies, this one came crashing down when I heard that Molly had a boyfriend.  

I was heartbroken, but whoever he was, I was certain he was Mr. Perfect — the perfect match for the perfect person. I didn’t know his name or anything about him but I assumed he was just as smart, sweet and sophisticated as Molly — the ideal Jewish boy that all mothers and bubbes dream of for their daughters.

I eventually lost track of Molly; I had heard she had gone off to law school — with Mr. Perfect in tow, I assumed.

In 2010, I took a job at the same organization where Molly had once worked. She might not be my sister-in-law but she could still be my role model.  

While there, I met a loud, flamboyant, Sephardic-Canadian Jew named Sean. Sean was eccentric — he had a Shih Tzu-poodle that never left his side; he wore three-piece suits to work even though the dress code was business-casual; and he described his eating habits as the latte-diet (two whole-milk lattes a day and one large meal after 9 p.m.).  Sean was a character, unlike anyone I had ever met.

As our friendship began to blossom, a mutual friend told me that Sean had dated colleagues in the past, most notably Molly. I quickly realized that based on the timeline, Sean was the Mr. Perfect from so many years before! 

But I was confused; Sean was far from perfect. Molly — at least the Molly I had created in my mind — would date only nice, conventional Jewish boys with nice, conventional personalities and nice, conventional eating habits. Not someone like Sean. 

Nevertheless, the fact that Molly had dated Sean suddenly gave him a Michelin star, and I wanted a reservation.  

A few weeks later, Sean and I began dating. At first, I spent much of the time wondering about Molly: Where did they go on dates? What activities did they like to do? What was Sean’s fatal flaw that drove them apart? (Obviously, it must be a flaw in him; after all, she’s perfect.)

Eventually Molly started drifting from my thoughts. I started dating Sean for Sean, not his ex-girlfriend. Then one afternoon, about two months into our relationship, my brother called from L.A.

“You’re never going to guess who I’m going on a date with tonight. Molly!” he said.

My heart started racing. I didn’t even know Molly lived in Los Angeles! This was it! This was Meant2Be!

 But then an image flashed in my head of a Rosh Hashanah dinner years into the future — my brother and Molly on one side of the table, Sean and I on the other. A pair of exes involved with a pair of siblings. One of these relationships had to end. I knew what I had to do.

“Molly and my brother are going on a date tonight. We need to break up,” I told Sean at dinner later that evening. I explained how this was six years in the making, how they were Meant2Be, how our relationship would make things awkward down the line.

 Sean laughed, rejecting my suggestion. “It’s just a date, Julia. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

As he laughed and smiled at me, I realized how ridiculous I was being. I didn’t actually know Molly — she had become a character in a play in my head. How could I be certain that she and my brother were Meant2Be? (It turns out they weren’t. They’ve both since found their actual Meant2Bes.)

Meanwhile, sitting across from me was a guy to whom I had just confessed I was crazy. Instead of running for the hills, he held my hand and laughed. His eccentricities matched with my crazy made him my Mr. Perfect. 

A year into my marriage to Sean, I sometimes think of Molly, grateful that my love of her led me to the love of my life. You might say that Molly and I were Meant2Be. 


Julia R. Moss lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Sean Thibault, and their Shih Tzu-poodle Max. She serves as director of community engagement at TRIBE Media Corp.

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