Love Stories from SDSU Professors

Reeling from the depressing tribulations of my dating failures, I find myself asking questions like
“Why?”, “Why me?”, and “Really? Again?”

Stuck in this morbid cycle, I often turn to others for help. Or at this point, anyone within range. Be it friends, coworkers, or the poor BCB cafe girl I shamelessly choose to trauma dump onto on Tuesdays and Thursdays, everyone in the vicinity can get a piece of the absolute shambles that is my dating life.

However, this week is different. This week, I am undertaking the role of the listener and have chosen to learn from those who know best: SDSU’s very own professors.

As many of us crawl through midterms, I asked some professors to open their hearts and implore my ADHD tendencies to discuss their greatest love stories. Who better of a mentor to get us through this period of turmoil than the very individuals who’ve learned it all? Presented is a series of three SDSU beloved professors’ accounts of meeting each of their own beloveds.

We begin with one of my former rhetoric and writing studies professors, Prof. Erin Flewelling. Flewelling and I originally met during my freshman year at SDSU in 2019; she captivated me with her stories of Barry Manilow and unawareness of BROCKHAMPTON. In an intrusive interview I forced her to endure, she told me of how she met her long-time husband at summer camp when they were teenagers.

“Dwayne and I have known each other for almost 45 years. I met him when I was just over 16. [To this day] he’s still my best friend. We really are partners in the sense that we grew up together, we’ve adapted together, and we like hanging out with friends together… We’ve changed a lot.” Flewelling and her husband had met during a summer camp in the Rocky Mountains that was coordinated by an organization
each of their parents’ belonged to.

“I lived in Colorado. He lived in San Diego. The organization would get the members’ teenage children together to come work for the summer. We got to work for free but we had to stay at the camp. It’s a really beautiful camp called ‘Spring Canyon.’”

She explained how her husband had different girlfriends each summer he worked for the camp and how she was “summer No. 3, girlfriend No. 3.” Come to find out, he originally didn’t like her (at least not in that capacity, yet), and neither did she. Since the beginning, their feelings for each other were mutual.

“I didn’t like his sarcasm or the way he treated people. But, turns out – he had really great [taste in] music. He brought his 8-track player and a bunch of 8-tracks and I was like ‘oh, I really like him.’”

After some time together, Flewelling understood her soon-to-be husband’s behavior better.

“One day I was down at the lake on my day off kayaking, and he bumps into me in his kayak. He goes, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to paddle these.’ I felt bad for him because why would someone lie and say they don’t know how to kayak?”

She would later learn that he actually did, in fact, know how to kayak.

“We started to spend our days off together.”

After the summer ran its course, each went home to their parents. They had cried for each other and wrote three to four letters a week. He held a clipboard to jot something down to tell her later.

Long-distance calls were expensive, so they would call only once a week. Flewelling spent the holidays with his family – an early step to the pair’s long partnership. After describing how she felt with him and the comfort they shared, she revealed they married a month after she graduated high school and eventually made the move to San Diego from Colorado. Here, she attended SDSU.

Presenting next is Dr. Kathleen Czech, lead undergraduate advisor for the School of Communication and an excellent email correspondent. Between the occasional email in matters relating to my course plan, Czech’s eager involvement in student affairs made her a great interviewee.

She also happens to be married to a well-known faculty member: Dr. Brian Spitzberg. The pair initially met through a mutual friend during graduate school here at SDSU.

“We are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this year.”

Czech happened to attend graduate school at the same time as Spitzberg. They ran around in the same Comm circles but never had actually met.

“A mutual friend of ours called me up one day and asked if I was seeing anyone. I said ‘no’ and she said ‘I want you to meet someone.’ I gave her permission to give my contact info to Brian.”

The two were talking on the phone when he invited her to an SDSU COMM grad student Halloween party at Moondoggies in Pacific Beach.

“I showed up in a poodle skirt as a 50s chick and he was a ‘Clockwork Orange’ druggie. It was an odd first date to be sure, but we had already arranged a meeting two days later with our mutual friend. So I knew I would see him again.”

Czech and Spitzberg’s relationship occurred after each had formed their own independence.
“I love to travel and often take off on an adventure alone. We got married in March and a week later I left for a solo trip for one month around Argentina. He had no issues with that and he lets me be who I am.”

From what I gathered, the two leave space for each other to keep their individuality.
“Brian is beyond kind and patient, but more than anything he is independent… I offer him the same room and independence to be who he is.”

The most sickening detail of Czech and Spitzberg's amazing romance goes to their marriage proposal.

“He proposed to me on a chance meeting in Italy when we're both traveling for different reasons and happened to be able to meet up in Italy for two days,” Czech confessed.

Oh to be married to your colleague – an ordinary case for SDSU. Introducing the amazing Dr. Heather Canary, director of the School of Communication.

“Canary? Why does that name sound familiar?” Well it should sound familiar because the School of Communication has two Dr. Canaries. Dr. Heather Canary happens to be married to Dr. Daniel Canary.

I met Dr. Heather Canary last semester when she was covering one of my COMM 300 class meetings. She piqued my interest for an abundance of reasons; one being her intricate knowledge of communication databases and two, her partner’s study interest in interpersonal conflict management.

The two lovebirds’ reconnection transpired during a conference they attended together. Two Diet Cokes and 10 months later, they were married.

Canary revealed she had first met her partner in graduate school at Cal State Fullerton.

“I was an MA student and he was my professor/thesis advisor. We found out much later that we both had secret crushes [on] each other, but because of our professional relationship, we never pursued anything romantic back then.”

The heart wants what it wants, but in the Canaries’ situation then, it just could not be. As Canary finished her MA track, the two parted their separate ways.

“We went on with our own separate lives in different parts of the country and with different partners for over a dozen years. We reconnected at an academic conference in 2002.”

She came to him for advice regarding doctoral program applications and re-entry into academia. The Canaries’ grabbed a couple of drinks together for their ‘first date’/reunion.

“Being academic nerds, our first dates weren’t really ‘dates.’ We first got together for sodas at a conference. We discovered we both loved Diet Coke!” says Canary.

“Then we got together a month or so later to talk about data, and publishing a paper together. He was living in Arizona and I was living in California, our entire pre-marriage relationship was long-distance with opportunities to see each other every so often. This was before Facetime and Zoom!”

Here, I wondered to myself, “why would someone put themselves through a long-distance relationship with this measure of limitation?”

Well, from H. Canary’s point of view, D. Canary is very much worth the trouble.

“From the moment we reconnected in 2002, I have seen Dan as the funniest, most empathetic, and smartest man I had ever met. After we reconnected over Diet Cokes in 2002, I thought to myself, ‘so that’s what I’ve been looking for?’”

She lamented over his immense patience and how “he has a very big heart that reaches out to support those in need.”

One could read these three love stories and be quick to judge. “What do all these people in love know about heartbreak?” A lot, actually. When I asked each professor what advice they would offer to those looking for commitment, each put forward their own food for thought. (The advice was more so for me, but I suppose I can share.)

According to Dr. Canary, “Don’t have a ‘checklist’ in your head for a dating partner.”

How, you may ask?

“Be authentic,” she says, “Be open to surprises that emerge through interactions. Talk ‘with’ each other and not ‘to’ each other if you really want to get to know someone and build a rewarding relationship.”

Czech shares to a degree as well.

“I really think students need to find their own independent goals before they start making couple goals. By this I mean, never give up what you want to do for someone else… at least not totally. Make sure you are always pursuing something that fulfills you as well.”

Most importantly, Czech noted the value of self-fulfillment.

She says, “if you are not fulfilled as an individual person you cannot be fulfilled as a couple. Don’t be in a rush and take time to find yourself and what you want to do in life. Then the rest will follow.”

The rest will indeed follow. However, if you are anal-retentive like I, hyper-analyze these questions with me that Flewelling offers when debating potential partners.

She asks, “Is this somebody you can laugh with? Somebody that respects all the parts to you [i.e.] your concerns, your fears, your strengths? Is this someone who you can imagine as a partner you can do things with as you change and get older?”

After digging through these professors’ personal business, a couple of things become clear. Valuing yourself, identifying your needs from a partner, and learning to have fun throughout is key. While there may not be a chance encounter or “meet cute” for some of us single folks, hold hope. Evidently, opportunities for love will show themselves when the time is right.

Karalyne Moira Porter Ah-Hing — March 23rd, 2022