It was in early March 2006 when I found myself venting my single-life frustrations to my roommate Will Paxton. We had a while before we had to leave for work, so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to present to Will my new outlook on dating.
“Stacy Morey is the new standard,” I said, as he sat back on the couch watching me pace back and forth across the living room floor.
“Ok, explain.” He responded.
Will was a great friend. After Melissa and I broke up, Kevin, Smitty, and I were searching for another person to split rent in a beautiful four bedroom home in Dover and Will was the first person I asked. He was one of the most intelligent people I’d ever met. He had worked on the flight line with Stacy for a short time and was still working on the line with me. He was a gifted mechanic and excellent troubleshooter, but working on airplanes clearly wasn’t his place in life. One day he would be rebuilding a computer in his bedroom and another he would be discussing ethics in politics and business strategy. His problem wasn’t whether or not he would succeed, it was what different profession he would choose to succeed in. I looked forward to our conversations as he was also a great listener and gave really good input.
“It’s simple. She’s gorgeous. That’s not even debatable.” I stopped and looked at Will to assure I wasn’t kidding about this well known and obvious fact. “She’s got herself together.” I continued pacing. “She’s finished her bachelor’s degree which means she’s driven and accomplishes goals she sets out to complete. She’s responsible. She just bought a house as an investment property as a single Staff Sergeant.”
“I agree; she’s really got her stuff together.” Said Will.
“But do you know what draws me most to the Stacy Morey Standard?”
“What’s that?”
“She isn’t annoying!”
I was having a tough time transitioning back into the single life. At first, I tried dating a girl I met on Myspace. We went out a couple of times, but I found out the hard way that some girls on Myspace who have a lot of friends online, well they have a lot of friends and I was just one of many. I tried dating an Air Force girl, hoping that some of the qualities I admired in Stacy would somehow exist in her because they shared the same enlisted status. It only took a few dates before our relationship came to a halt when she let some racist terms slip and didn’t understand why I was making such a big deal about it.
“So she’s the standard.” Will responded. “She is that by which all other girls must be compared to, live up to, and held accountable to emulate?”
“Precisely!” I said.
“You do know the only person who can live up to your expectation is Stacy, right?”
“Yes.” I responded, frustrated. “Chris Bollard doesn’t even know what he has.” Will nodded in agreement as he knew exactly what I was talking about.
One night in early February, Smitty and I went out to one of the local Dover bars. We arrived later in the night and were sitting at the bar having our usual debate over who would win if the University of Southern California and the University of Nebraska played for a college football national championship. About thirty minutes into our debate, Chris Bollard walked through the front door with a girl from work and another girl who I didn’t know. He noticed me immediately and made sure to come over and assure me that he and the two girls were just friends. Which was interesting because by the end of the night he had danced intertwined amongst his two friends and a few other ladies in a way that felt a lot more strip club than it did a local bar. I came back home that night more frustrated and angry than I had been in a long time.
“If I was with Stacy, I’d never even consider going out to a bar with another woman. How much of a loser do you have to be when you’re grinding on girls at the Dover dive while your girlfriend is deployed to the desert?”
“Those are the breaks my friend. Sometimes the jerk gets the great girl and we just have to live with it. At least now you know what you’re looking for.”
“I guess you’re right,” I conceded and caught a glance at the clock. “You ready to go?”
Will and I both liked to get to work early. One of us would check out a tool box while the other would check his email, on the next day we’d switch. On that night it was Will’s turn to get the box so I found an open computer in the break room and logged in to check my email. At first, my inbox appeared to be full of the usual training due dates and squadron events. But, as I filtered through the familiar, I noticed one email from Stacy Morey; the subject line: I thought you might be interested…
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