I met my sister's boyfriend today

[xiphias]

My little baby sister (who is 23) has been dating this guy Kent for a while now. I've heard some about him, but, since she lives in Florida, I'd never met him. My parents met him a couple months ago, and liked him, but tonight was the first time I'd met him. I'd been a little worried, because he's significantly older than she is -- he has a daughter in high school. But now I've met him.

I approve. Not that my approval or disapproval would, or should, have any bearing on my sister's actions, but I like Kent.

So, yeah. My sister found a ballet dancer redneck geek cowboy Special Forces bouncer optometrist who's got a master's degree in theology, and is working on his doctorate. He's cute, too. And he cooks. And is a comics geek.

So, there was this guy. And he was a smart, geeky ballet dancer growing up on a ranch in a redneck town. And his father sent him off to the Army because, hell, he was a ballet dancer, and a geek, so he needed to do something MANLY. And this guy was one of those people who believed in doing whatever he did well, so he ended up excelling in the army, and going Special Forces. And he had one of those miraculous escapes from death that happen sometimes when you're in a combat situation (he was walking point, and set off a Bouncing Betty. It exploded in front of him, and threw shrapnel into a tree behind him. He was uninjured.) This made him start thinking about theology, and whether there was a reason he wasn't killed, and so he started studying theology.

He did bunches of other things, too, including being a bouncer at a nightclub. Where he met, and eventually started dating, another bouncer at the club, who is my sister.

Yeah.

I'm a gamer geek, myself. Every once in a while, I meet someone, and get the thought, "Man, I'd really like to see THAT person's character sheet." 'Cause, see, there are plenty of people out there that have that kind of interesting story -- the Special Forces seems to attract them. . . another person I know was Force Recon in Vietnam, went from that to war correspondent, to general journalism, to journalism professor, to some sort of high-paying executive type job, to owning his own sex toy catalog business. Then there's my uncle, who was a Ranger in Vietnam, and now develops and runs historical recreation museums.

Me, I'm a very boring person. And I write about being a very boring person. But I write about being boring in what I hope is an interesting manner. I know interesting people, and, after all, not everybody can be Sherlock Holmes, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with being John Watson.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I feel that at this point I should mention that Ranj is 20 years older than I am, we met when I was 19, and we are celebrating our 7th anniversary this year. :)

As long as he's a nice guy to start with, him being older probably won't make a difference. :)

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Your sister's life continues to be novel-worthy in its scope, I see. :) Good for her. The guy sounds really interesting!

The only possible pitfall I can see is the existence of a kid of his who's closer to her age than she is to his, but it'll depend on all the people whether that's a problem or not. Speaking from my own perspective, if my dad hooked up with someone that much younger, I'd be put off, but maybe his kid is more open-minded than I am.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

You, your sister, your mother, your father, and your wife are five of the most interesting people I've ever known. I am unsurprised to see this trend continue. :)

Hug the redhead for me. (Hug them all for me, really, but since she's not local she's the one I'm least likely to see.)

A.
with a hug for you. *hug*

[gilana]

She's a bouncer in a nightclub??? What I wouldn't give to see her deal with rowdies. She so rocks.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's bouncing this summer, but she was. But that was back when she was living in Melbourne, Florida, and now she's closer to the center of the state.

She was hired because they needed someone to cover the women's bathrooms. As it turns out, though, she's a fine general-purpose bouncer, too -- because most of the rowdies who would cause problems just plain won't take a swing at a four-and-a-half foot tall cute girl. And, of course, if they DO take a swing at her, they tend to miss, because she's so short. And, if they connect, she can take it, and she can tend to wipe the floor with folks much, much larger than she is -- which is good, because just about everybody is much, much larger than she is. . .

[msdaisy.livejournal.com]

I don't know you really well in real life, but I don't think you're a boring person. You might not be doing "interesting things" all the time, but you don't have a boring brain. and you do write about stuff in an interesting manner - even minutia.

and by the way, I also know that person with the interesting work resume - from special forces to sex toy catalog business. he's a nice guy. he's got an interesting bio. but he's boring.

This is Xiphias' "little baby sister"

[(Anonymous)]

I'm 24, not 23 :-P Kent was not in the Army, He was an Air Force Combat Controller. You forgot to mention that he owned the number one Karate school in the late 80's/ early 90's according to "Black Belt Magazine". He holds the "Atlantic Strong Man" for 1988. And we weren't "bouncers" we were "Security" and I only got the job because I was dating him. :)

(And about his character sheet... He has a plus 3 magic sword hidden under the bed, but don't tell anyone)

Hee Hee, if you gonna tell a story, get you facts straight :-P Luvs u

Re: This is Xiphias' "little baby sister"

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm 24, not 23

I'm elderly; I drop a year every now and again. I just remember that you're five years younger than me, so I subtract 5 from my age.

I thought I was 28. . .

And I'd have thought, growing up with Dad as we did, you would have learned that getting your facts straight is completely irrelevant to telling a story.

more from his little sister

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah, and C.C., his daughter is in Middle School, not High school. She's turning 14 in September. And she's the sweetest girl. She's one of those perfect girls that I would have hated if I had gone to school with her, but that would have been my prejudice. She's a flyer on her cheer-leading team (so of course she's tiny and skinny, because she's getting thrown waaaaay high in the air), she's a straight A student and she's little miss popular. All the boys love her. But she's Daddy's Little Girl and she's got an attitude. There was a guy mistreating her, so she popped him. Kent spent a lot of time with her as a chaperon when she was younger too, so all the guys know him. When they would misbehave on field trips, he would make them do push-ups. To this day there is one kid who used to be a scrawny little misbehaving boy, who now, every time he sees Kent automatically gets down and does pushups. Once Kent asked him about it and he said "I dunno, there must have been something I did wrong". She's very sweet and we get along very well (I think because we have the common bond of teasing her father)