Nicholas Sparks: Two by Two

And that’s the thing. When you start trying to figure out what went wrong-or, more specifically, where you went wrong-it’s a bit like peeling an onion. There’s always another layer, another mistake in the past or a painful memory that stands out, which then leads one back even further in time, and then even further, in search of the ultimate truth . I’ve reached the point where I’ve stopped trying to figure it out: The only thing that really matters now is learning enough to avoid making the same mistakes again.

To understand why that is, it’s important to understand me. Which isn’t easy, by the way. I’ve been me for more than a third of a century, and half the time, I still don’t understand myself. So let me start with this: As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to believe that there are two types of men in the world. The marrying type, and the bachelor type. The marrying type is the kind of guy who pretty much sizes up every girl he dates, assessing whether or not she could be The One . It’s the reason that women in their thirties and forties often say things like All the good men are taken. By that, women mean guys who are ready, willing, and able to commit to being part of a couple.

I’ve always been the marrying type. To me, being part of a couple feels right . For whatever reason, I’ve always been more comfortable in the presence of women than men, even in friendship, and spending time with one woman who also happened to be madly in love with me struck me as the best of all possible worlds.

And it can be, I suppose. But that’s where things get a bit trickier because not all marrying types are the same. There are subgroups within the marrying types, guys who may also consider themselves to be romantic , for instance. Sounds nice, right? The kind of guy that most women insist they want? It probably is, and I must admit that I’m a card-carrying member of this particular subgroup. In rare instances, however, this particular subtype is also wired to be a people pleaser and when taken together, these three things made me believe that with just a bit more effort-if only I tried a little harder-then my wife would always adore me in the same way I adored her.

But what was it that made me that way? Was it simply my nature? Was I influenced by family dynamics? Or did I simply watch too many romantic movies at an impressionable age? Or all of the above?

I have no idea, but I state without hesitation that the watching too many romantic movies thing was entirely Marge’s fault. She loved the classics like An Affair to Remember and Casablanca , but Ghost and Dirty Dancing were up there too, and we must have watched Pretty Woman at least twenty times. That movie was her all-time favorite. What I didn’t know, of course, was that Marge and I enjoyed watching it because we both had massive crushes on Julia Roberts at the time, but that’s beside the point. The film will probably live on forever because it works . The characters played by Richard Gere and Julia Roberts had… chemistry . They talked. They learned to trust each other, despite the odds. They fell in love. And how can one possibly forget the scene when Richard Gere is waiting for Julia-he’s planning to take her to the opera-and she emerges wearing a gown that utterly transforms her? The audience sees Richard’s awestruck expression, and he eventually opens a velvet box, which holds the diamond necklace Julia will also be wearing that evening. As Julia reaches for it, Richard snaps the lid closed, and Julia’s sudden joyful surprise…

It was all there, really, in just those few scenes. The romance, I mean-trust, anticipation, and joy combined with opera, dressing up, and jewelry all led to love . In my preteenage brain, it just clicked: a how-to manual of sorts to impress a girl. All I really had to do was remember that girls had to like the guy first and that romantic gestures would then lead to love . In the end, another romantic in the real world was created.

When I was in sixth grade, a new girl joined the class. Melissa Anderson had moved from Minnesota, and with blond hair and blue eyes, she shared the look of her Swedish ancestors. When I saw her on the first day of school, I’m pretty sure I went slack-jawed and I wasn’t the only one. Every guy was whispering about her and there was little doubt in my mind that she was far and away the prettiest girl who’d ever set foot in Mrs. Hartman’s class at Arthur E. Edmonds elementary school.

But the difference between me and the other guys at school was that I knew exactly what to do while they did not. I would woo her and though I wasn’t Richard Gere with private jets and diamond necklaces, I did have a bicycle and I’d learned how to macramé bracelets, complete with wooden beads. Those, however, would come later. First-just like Richard and Julia-we had to get to like each other. I began to find reasons to sit at the same table with her at lunch. While she talked, I listened and asked questions, and weeks later, when she finally told me that she thought I was nice, I knew it was time to take the next step. I wrote her a poem-about her life in Minnesota and how pretty she was-and I slipped it to her on the school bus one afternoon, along with a flower. I took my seat, knowing exactly what would happen: She’d understand I was different, and with that would come an even greater epiphany, one that would lead her to reach for my hand and ask me to walk her home as soon as we got off the bus.

Except it didn’t work out that way. Instead of reading the poem, she gabbed with her friend April the whole way home, and the following day, she sat next to Tommy Harmon at lunch and didn’t talk to me at all. Nor did she speak to me the following day, or the day after that. When Marge found me sulking in my bedroom later, she told me that I was trying too hard and that I should just be myself.

“I am being myself.”

“Then you might want to change,” Marge retorted, “because you’re coming across as desperate.”

Problem was, I didn’t think twice. Did Richard Gere think twice? He clearly knew more than my sister, and again, here’s where wisdom and I were obviously traveling in opposite directions along the highway. Because Pretty Woman was a movie and I was living in the real world, but the pattern I established with Melissa Anderson continued, with variations, until it eventually became a habit I couldn’t break. I became the king of romantic gestures-flowers, notes, cards, and the like-and in college, I was even the “secret admirer” to a girl I happened to fancy. I opened doors and paid for dates, and I listened whenever a girl wanted to talk, even if it was about how much she still loved her ex-boyfriend. Most girls sincerely liked me. I mean that. To them, I was a friend , the kind of guy who’d get invited to hang out with a group of girlfriends whenever they went out, but I seldom succeeded in landing the girl I’d set my sights on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “You’re the nicest guy I know, and I’m sure you’ll meet someone special. I have two or three friends I could probably set you up with…”

It wasn’t easy being the guy who was perfect for someone else . It often left me brokenhearted, and I couldn’t understand why women told me that they wanted certain traits-romance and kindness, interest and the ability to listen-and then didn’t appreciate it when it was actually offered to them.

I wasn’t altogether unlucky in love, of course. In high school, I had a girlfriend named Angela during my sophomore year; in college, Victoria and I were together most of my junior year. And during the summer after graduation from college, when I was twenty-two, I met a woman named Emily.