It started with a headache and a bold move at a tech expo.
Back in 1991, Tim was a tech founder who felt super geeky and shy around women, while I was working in advertising sales. He actually asked a colleague for my number because he desperately needed a date for his own company Christmas party. When we finally went out, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to date him seriously yet, but I was immediately struck by how much his team respected and revered him. We ended up going to another party together, and that night, we stayed up talking until the lights were low and the world faded away. That conversation changed everything, and I fell in love with his essential self rather than just what I saw on the surface.
Full transcript
[00:00:00]Tim: so it was, uh, 1991 San Jose Convention Center. Cd, was it CD ROM expo or multimedia Expo?
[00:00:08]Susan: CD rom.
[00:00:08]Tim: CD rom expo. And, I had started a company and I’d given a presentation at the show, but I kind of had a headache and I was sitting there and this gorgeous woman was walking down the hall and came right to our table and sat down at our table and she was talking with our director of marketing communications who bought the advertising for our company.
[00:00:29]Tim: And I might have said hi, ’cause I was super geeky. Like I worshiped Bill Gates and I was just very geeky and I worked hard and I knew my computers, but girls, eh, not so good. Later I asked the woman who was at our table, her name was Claire, I go, Claire, who was that? And can I get her number? And she gave me her number ’cause I needed a date for the company Christmas party, which was in like four days.
[00:00:54]Tim: I didn’t even, it was my own company. I didn’t have a date for the party. So I called up Susan and [00:01:00] asked her out to lunch ’cause I needed to make sure she wouldn’t embarrass me at the company Christmas party. Susan calls up Claire, who was literally in the office next to me.
[00:01:08]Tim: Mm-hmm. And, uh, call up Claire and said, who’s this guy and why’d you give him my number? And Claire goes, if I were 10 years younger, I’d marry him myself. And I didn’t know any of this stuff was going on, but, uh, yeah, Susan went to the company Christmas party and she was just, you know, fun and delightful and impressed everybody.
[00:01:31]Tim: And, you know, I guess she tolerated me because we went out on another date. So
[00:01:37]Susan: we knew almost right away that, that we were the ones though. This was back in our monogamous era. Tim was very quiet. Very introverted. And you know, he was reved by the people in his company.
[00:01:53]Susan: And I just was so impressed with how reverential, he was such a young man and [00:02:00] everyone else was older, but they were so reverential to him and so kind to him.
[00:02:03]Susan: And, and I just saw his sweet essence. And I remember one time he didn’t look great. He was a little rougher around the edges. He was, he dressed like a total geek
[00:02:14]Tim: I was wearing hoodies way before, before Mark Zuckerberg was even born.
[00:02:18]Susan: But it was funny because I remember one time we went to a Christmas party of an ad agency that was media vision’s ad agency. And I was selling them advertise.
[00:02:26]Susan: I was an ad salesperson. I represented magazines ’cause there wasn’t even the internet yet.
[00:02:30]Susan: And so we were both invited to this party. We said, well, let’s go together. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to date him really yet. This was more just like we could ride together, company kind of thing.
[00:02:42]Susan: But I was interested, like I saw there was something there and I just remember that night we came back to my place and we just stayed up talking. That night I fell in love with Tim because the lights were low. [00:03:00] I wasn’t focused on what he was wearing or what he was driving or his, you know,
[00:03:06]Tim: oh, my haircut, haircut, my ridiculous glasses I wore.
[00:03:09]Susan: Yes. They were so geeky. Um, I could just hear his essential self. And I fell in love with him that night. And within four months we were engaged and within a year we were married. We literally would’ve married sooner, but we were waiting to get married at one of the missions, the Mission Santa Clara. He got his MBA at Santa Clara University.
[00:03:31]Susan: And because of that, we had access to get married in a beautiful California mission. The only fee was $75. We paid $75 to get married there, you know, the deal, which was amazing, the deal.
[00:03:41]Susan: I mean, it’s a gorgeous place and, I just knew that sweet angel heart of a man. I just wanted to be with him forever.
[00:03:51]Susan: He had things that I loved about him, and this is what I said for many, many years were the reasons I married him. I married him because he [00:04:00] was the kindest person I’d ever met in my life, and he still is. He’s just beatific. He’s sweet. He’s just a sweet man. But I also married him because he’s a genius.
[00:04:13]Susan: He’s a Mensa level genius. He has the most incredible mind for me to have the honor of going. Well, I’ve been, we’ve been together longer than we’ve been apart now. And
[00:04:25]Susan: I’ve spent more of my life with this brilliant human being who operates at such a high level that it’s my honor to be with him. I also liked his last name ’cause I had a really weird name, a weird last name.
[00:04:39]Susan: It was, it’s Alsan, it’s like French German. And if you can’t spell it, if you hear it and you can’t read it and say it. Right. And Bratton was such a good name and I was like, oh, he is got, and he had a big dick. Yes. And I, I’m a giant woman. I, I need, I got a lot of spaciousness that can, needs to be filled.[00:05:00]
[00:05:00]Susan: Yeah. And I loved his big dick. I dunno if there was another one. Those were like the, the major ones. But then just about like, maybe even in the last year, what I realized was that he’s calms my nervous system. His nervous system feels so good to be with that. I ne we work together, we live together, we do everything together.
[00:05:24]Susan: And I literally never think to myself, oh, gimme a little space. Like I could just be with him. I could literally just be like this with him for the rest of my life if I didn’t need to use both hands and I’d be happy.
[00:05:38]Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:38]Susan: He, he just makes me feel that equanimity that he just is, that’s so important to me.
[00:05:45]Susan: And I didn’t have those words then. Um, I had big dick 34 years ago, but I didn’t have, you know, nervous system energy and, uh, so that was really what it was about him that I [00:06:00] loved, and he kept me safe. And it was his nervous system, but it was also just the way that he was just calm about it. He’s never yelled.
[00:06:07]Susan: Have you ever yelled at me? Mm-hmm. Mm, I don’t
[00:06:10]Susan: think
[00:06:10]Susan: so. And I’m, I’m a handful. Yeah. He has never true. Yelled at me, pissed at me, but he’s said right nicely pissed off at me. You know, he’s been like for many months in a row over the years about, you know, bullshit that we go through. But he has never yelled at me.
[00:06:29]Susan: He’s never hurt me, he’s never raised a hand, he’s never done anything like that. And I came from a very sketchy childhood where I had a lot of trauma and abuse, emotional, physical, sexual, a lot. And he has really healed me through all of that as well. He has been both my nurturer and my healer.
