In Alice Munro's "How I Met My Husband-, the first person narrator, Edie, is a young, nave girl who falls for a handsome, charming pilot named Chris Watters. Although he is much older than her and he is engaged to be married, Edie makes herself believe that Chris is in love with her. Edie creates romantic "truths- out of her hope and desire for someone to love her.
As can be inferred by the title, Munro chose to have an older, more mature Edie tell this story of her fifteen-year-old self. However, unlike most first person narration, she didn't choose it to make the reader see and feel only what young Edie sees and feels. Although the older Edie does not interfere with the reader's interpretation of the thoughts and actions of her younger self, there is a definite distinction between what the young Edie perceives and what the reader perceives. For example, when Edie admits to being intimate with Chris, the reader is aware of the misunderstanding from the start, while Edie becomes upset and doesn't understand Alice Kelling and Mrs. Peebles' shocked and appalled reactions. .
Young Edie's first mistake is in assuming that the pilot, Chris Watters, likes her when he tells her she looks beautiful. She allows herself to get caught up in her attraction to Chris to the point where she becomes jealous of his fiancée, Alice Kelling, saying there was "nothing in the least pretty or even young-looking about her,"" and making further comments about her hands being "freckled and wrinkled."" She even seems to question Chris and Alice's relationship when she mentions that her engagement ring stone was tiny and that her cousin had one twice as big. Edie doesn't seem to find anything good about her. .
Young Edie's perception in this situation is skewed because of her desire for someone to love her, which is evident in her telling of how she longs for a boyfriend or someone to kiss. Because she wants Chris to love her, she actually begins to believe that he does.
