Stories like yours (and hair and ecurbh's!) give me a lot of hope. And truthfully...though I've kind of been in "hope I meet someone very soon" mode since I was 18 or so, I don't think I was ready when some others were. Some of my younger siblings are far, far more mature than I was at their ages.
I'd like to think I'm ready now, though. And bein' patient is hard. But it's not like we can really force things to happen...