I love hearing the stories of how couples met and got together. I think it reassures me that it could happen anywhere, at any time, under any circumstances- comforting for someone who hasn’t met “the one” yet.
I was thinking about how people I know met and that’s when it hit me- my parents are totally Jim and Pam- or at least the Jim and Pam of the late seventies. There are many similarities and just a few variations. They met in a small office in suburban Pennsylvania that sold phone systems, rather than paper, and my dad was the one who was engaged when my mom started working there. My dad was the smart-ass but bright, prankster salesman (he once made pot brownies and brought them in for the office, but only told my mom about the secret ingredient). My mom worked in an administrative role and had a sassy side, though she was more of a party girl than Pam, known to tear up a dance floor or two, still does actually.
They were good friends, but my mom knew she felt more than that and at some level my dad did too. In fact at one of their company holiday parties, his then fiancé accused him of seeing my mom behind her back, even though nothing had happened between them at that point. It didn’t take one of them moving away, though, for my dad to realize he wasn’t with the right person.
They started dating pretty much as soon as he broke off his engagement and were engaged within six weeks. They have been unbelievably happily married ever since. I don’t know if that’s what the writers have in the cards for Jim and Pam, but it’s certainly what everyone deserves.
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