September 25, 2014

Our Story: The Beginning

Today marks 5 years since me and the Hubs started dating!  So I thought, what would be better occasion than this to tell the story of how we began!

To give a little background, I'm going to wind up just a little bit further, to the springish of 2009.  I was an economics major in my senior year of college.  As an economics major, I knew full well about the economic climate, considering I took classes on the start of the recession, and wrote my senior thesis on it. So I knew that summer of 2009 would be a pretty bad time to try to look for a job.  I decided I should go to grad school instead, though I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.

I applied to a business school or two, and if I recall correctly got in to one.  I also applied to a Catholic law school.  I had taken the LSAT, more for fun than anything else (I'm a dork, I like test taking) and only applied to this one law school.  I actually distinctly remember finishing the essays for the application on a flight to visit my parents, and rushing to type it all up and submit it before it was too late, because it was the absolutely last day to apply.  So it was decently surprising that I got in, and with a scholarship!  I took that as a sign of where God wanted me to be, and decided that was where I was going.

I hadn't applied myself completely in college, and was determined that with law school things would be different.  I resolved that I would devote myself to my studies completely and not let myself get distracted by anything trivial, like dating.  I remember talking to my confessor at the time and freaking out about it.  I felt called to go to law school, which would mean I would have to study, and then focus on my career, and I would never have time for dating and I would wind up alone.  I remember the priest's response, that if marriage was my vocation, that would come first.  Little did I know that I was about to discover how wrong I was and how right the priest was :).

Since I had just been accepted to a school, I did what any social media addict would do,  I joined the facebook group for the incoming class.  In the group there were some upperclassmen who were offering advice on how to prepare.  One of those upperclassmen facebook friended me, so I wrote him a message and we began to talk about what brought us to that particular school.  He sent a beautiful long message about how he had felt God had also called him to that school and the circumstances surrounding it, and I....forgot to message him back.  I was busy going back and forth between my college (I was taking a summer school class to prepare) and home across the country and kinda let that slide.  Oops!

When I got back the college town, also the same area where the law school was, I hung out with my college friends while I settled in for the law school orientation.  One night, we decided to go out to one of our favorite pubs.  As we're sitting outside talking, I noticed a guy that seemed... familiar.  It was that guy I had been messaging!  He was deeply involved in conversation with his friends, so he wasn't noticing me.  After an hour or two I got the guts and went to go introduce myself.  He was energetic, happy, friendly, and so handsome!  There was definitely something about him!   He told me, long after the fact, that when he saw me, he knew it was something special too.  He says its was like everything went from black and white to color.  At the end of the night I gave him my phone number and hoped to hang out again soon.

We started hanging out little by little.  He was "randomly" assigned as my mentor in a school program that assigned an upperclassman to a first year student (He may have had a friend that was involved in the "random" assigning). He invited me to play volleyball with a group of his friends (where I apparently gave him a look which melted his heart).

Our first picture together, playing volleyball

On Sundays, I started attending the mass he went to (I normally went at a different time) and having lunch with him and his friends.  We started studying together.  Yea, pretty soon we were hanging out almost every day, but always in a group, friendly way (though everyone else could see that there was something going on, haha).

It was at one of those Sunday lunches, about a month after I had introduced myself to him at the pub, that someone mentioned they like sushi.  I mentioned I like sushi, and lo and behold the guy liked sushi too!  So we decided we'd go Friday to get some sushi.  On Wednesday that week, after a study session, the guy asked me if we could "upgrade Friday to a date".  Well of course I said yes!  Little did I know, the guy had called my parents and asked for permission to date me, and was talking to my sister (who I lived with at the time) about good places to take me on our date!

On September 25, 2009, he picked me up and took me to my favorite sushi place by the beach.  We were both so nervous through the entire dinner!  Then we went to an adorable restaurant that made fresh donuts for dessert.  We sat on the second floor of the restaurant, which we had all to ourselves and ate the donuts with our chopsticks from the sushi restaurant.  We were so silly, and I was just so comfortable with him!  After that, we went for a walk on the beach, where he asked me to be his girlfriend, and we had our first kiss!  It was a beautiful beginning to a beautiful relationship!

On our first date!

And that's the story of how we met and started dating.... and how we hit all of the major cliches: we met online, we met through school, we met at a bar, and started dating through church :).

4 comments:

  1. This was such a fun read. I enjoyed learning more about your love story. I love the last line about the cliches! He sounds like a wonderful guy, of course.

    (You're making me think I should write up a similar story. I have until June to post my how-we-met-5-years-ago story!)

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    1. Thank you! Haha the cliche part is definitely one of my favorite parts of the story! Yes, write up your story too! I always want to hear a good love story :).

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  2. You two are so cute! What a great love story!

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