Day 2: May 14, 2011

So I read the entries my friends made on this subject, and they both chose something other than what you would traditionally think of as a first love story. For Deema it was books, and for Stephanie it was her cat. I think I’m going to go with what I think the challenge meant, and tell the story of my first romantic love. Otherwise I’ll really be copying Deema since mine was books too.

My first love was after high school. I dated in high school, but nothing serious. After high school, I started seeing this guy Monty. His family was old friends with a family from my church, and they had invited him to a couple of events, and bible study things. We met at a bible study right after a traumatic event in his life. He wasn’t in a relationship place, and I was just getting out of one, and didn’t want another. We met again eight or nine months later, and were studying for the ASFAB together. I wasn’t particularly interested in joining the military, but I do like to study and learn new things. (Yes, I am a geek, always have been.) A couple of weeks of getting together to study and his friend cracked a joke about his girlfriend. I was surprised, because I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. We stopped studying together after that.

Another eight or nine months goes by. I heard through the grapevine at church he and his girlfriend broke up. I ran into him at my place of employment. He asked for my number. I gave it to him. He called and asked me out. We went to Omelets Plus, a hole in the wall diner everybody called OPs. It had been Pete’s, so OPs meant both Old Pete’s and Omelets Plus. After eating we took a drive halfway to Clallam Bay and back. He spent the whole date talking about his ex and how it all went wrong. I was sympathetic, but honestly, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about on our first date.

He called me again, and asked me out again. I don’t remember our second date so much. But our third date, his friend was in town, and he didn’t want to abandon him, so we went to the movies, the three of us. It was Fight Club. I was outvoted. His friend was very attractive, and I said we should set him up with my friend. He said that would be fun, so the next time his friend was in town, in two weeks we would set them up. We saw each other a couple of times between. Then we had the double date set up. My friend was not enthusiastic about being set up.  I guess neither was his friend. They set up a thumbs up/thumbs down signal for when my friend came out of her workplace.

I went in to get her, and we came back out. Until this point, neither of them had seen my friend. She is beautiful. We heard later that they completely forgot their thumbs up/thumbs down signal; they were too surprised and pleased by my friend. My friend and his hit it off, and they started dating. They were actually an official couple before we were.

Then one night we were hanging out on his parents couch where he was crashing, and talking late into the night. We had all the lights off, and he started this conversation about how would I introduce him. I knew what he meant, but I wanted him to say it first, so I played dumb. I had to play dumb for over two hours before he got the hint and asked me to be his girlfriend. (It was a long two hours, and a very circular conversation.)

We were together for over three months before we slept together. I knew then that he loved me. He had told me that he’d never slept with someone unless he loved them, but neither one of us had said it yet. After another month or two of being together, he would tell me to go to sleep because he wanted to tell me something. I was afraid to love, or be in love. I wasn’t sure I was ready. I wanted to hear him say it though. I would try to stay awake to hear it, but he was pretty careful. Then one night he asked me if I was asleep. I told him no. Instead of telling me to go to sleep because he had something he wanted to tell me, he told me he was glad, because he had something he wanted to tell me. He wanted me awake. He said “I love you.” I thought about it for a minute. Just a minute, but it must have been a very long minute for him. Then I said it back. “I love you too.”  He had been telling me in my sleep for a month and half, and I knew saying would change my life, but right then, I felt it.

We were together for a little over three years. I moved to Vancouver, he followed me. We lived together. We took everything in slow stages. His best friend married my best friend. The one and only time I have ever set anyone up, and I hit a grand slam

            Matt and Danielle, my one and only fix up, still married, three kids :)

I found out later that he wanted to marry me. He asked my dad around the time of my friend’s wedding. My dad told him he didn’t think I was ready, but he could ask if he wanted to. He didn’t ask.

He joined the Air Force. I encouraged him to. I went to his Basic Training Graduation. I loved him. I wanted to marry him. He never asked. He got assigned to England. He went. After a few months, he stopped writing. (He was never much of a writer anyway.) He hardly ever called. The love just faded away.