My Husband Rocks!

An acquaintance of mine was kicked out of her house on Christmas Day, by her husband who served her with divorce papers. She and her three kids are now living in a shelter. This prompted me to call my husband and tell him that he is the greatest guy ever, and I meant it. Next month I will have known my husband for 16 years. S and I had a very interesting and short courtship. I would just like to reminisce for a while about the way we met, because I am feeling particularly pleased with him right now. 

I was working at the Church Office Building when I was 18, right out of high school. I had just been through a particularly hard break up and was attempting to date again. My friends Alissa and Kirk had just announced to everyone at work that they were engaged. Alissa and I were having this discussion about how everyone we knew had gotten married right out of high school. She said that her new fiance only had one friend left that wasn't engaged or married. In my enthusiasm to be dating anyone and everyone I said "OH! Set me up with him!". I swear to this day that I don't have a clue where these words came from. There was even a guy in the room that I had a huge crush on and was anxiously trying to date. (He wouldn't get involved because he was going on a mission soon and didn't want to leave someone behind.) It was like someone took over my mouth and those words just came flying out of their own volition. I immediately regretted saying this but didn't take it back either. Well the next day she came into work and asked what I was doing that next weekend. The funny thing is that at that time everyone was setting me up with their friends. S was the second of three blind dates in as many weeks. I had this rule that I wouldn't go out with someone unless I talked to them on the phone first. So she had him call me and we talked. I knew right away that we would get along really well. He had a very easy going personality and he was funny, which is a huge plus for me. 

We arranged our first date and the night of the date he came to pick me up. I opened the door and about fell over. He was a huge nerd! He was wearing black dockers with white tennis shoes. I had never seen anyone do this! He had on this horrendous plaid shirt and he was so skinny! I tried to be polite and remember that we got along really well on the phone. We went to his friends cabin in Brighton with a very large group of people. Of the 20 people ther the only ones that I knew were the couple that set us up. Right away S and I had this great chemistry. He was so funny! He was really cracking me up, mostly making fun of me! I am one those people who is always being made fun of so I was really used to it and it actually put me at my ease. I did get a few shots in myself and he didn't seem to mind either. The ability to laugh at yourself had always ranked pretty high with me. He made fun of the way that I toasted marshmallows, he cheated at cards and he was genuinely funny when I told him how old I was. It got so that he was teasing me so much I started asking if anyone else wanted to give me a ride home. People were asking us how long we had been dating. When we told them that it had been about thirty minutes they were surprised and said that they assumed that we were engaged. The really funny thing is that the couple that set us up, and knew both of us pretty well, knew right away that we were hitting it off well, but S's friend who was there and I had never met before thought we would never date again. I believe his exact phrase to his girlfriend was "What was with S's date?" I do believe that if he had asked me to marry him that night I probably would have said yes. We went out a for a few weeks and I started to get a little nervous about what his intentions were. I sat him down about two weeks into dating and very clearly stated that I had been hurt before and didn't want to begin a serious relationship right away. I was just looking to have some fun and that I really did like dating him. He was very cool about it! We were engaged three weeks later! The funny thing is that I don't think I meant it. I don't think I was trying to avoid a commitment I think I was just trying to convince myself that what I was feeling for him wasn't real, that I was just on the rebound. Once I finally figured out that what I was feeling was genuine things went a lot smoother. We were engaged after only 5 weeks of dating and I have to say that it has always felt right. I have never doubted that he is the right one for me. We just fit! 

On a side note we figured out after we were married that we had actually met once before that first blind date. On Halloween the previous year I went to a work party with my boyfriend at the time. We were watching a movie that I brought and no one was paying attention to the movie, they all thought it was boring (Hitchcock's Rear Window, boring I think not!). In fact the only thing that everyone did seem to have any interest in was teasing me and, throwing Dum Dum suckers at me! They were doing it all night! Even some nerdy guy, that one of the guys I worked with brought with him, was doing it. He was with a date and he was of absolutely no interest to me. His name was S.