I went to a wedding celebration last night; the room was filled with some of New York’s most talented all toasting to the couples bright future and it made me think about how hard it is to find that person you’ll spend the rest of your life with. I read once that women have a tendency to meander a bit when it comes to picking her lover, sizing up each potential mate like one compares the nutritional values of food in a supermarket. I move at a glacial pace when it comes to matters of the heart, it takes me far too long to reach the mountain top and often my partner is left standing alone and out of breath on it’s peak. For me, it’s a classic tale of “too little, too late.” I can never seem to hit the mark, even when I desperately want to, which makes me feel like a failure, like there is something wrong with me because I don’t fall easily.  I used to feel guilty about not being the forerunner in this race for happily ever after, and it was Ruben Toledo who made me see the finish line. He said, “Isabel’s theory is that women enter love through the doorway of liking. I think we men fall in love instantly, like within three seconds, like love at first sight, and that’s the real thing. When we first met, she only liked me. But I instantly loved her. It took ten years to convince her to feel the same way.” And there you have it, try and push and break a woman and she’ll just push back, construct whatever she has to to restrain the force that’s scaring her out of her wits so early on in the relationship, because after all, we know it’s slow and steady that wins the race.