Our Love Story

How We Met

My sophomore year at Auburn University, I clicked on an ad on the side of my facebook for a Christian dating website (christiancafe.com). These ads had been showing up for months, since I finally broke things off with my high school sweetheart and changed my status to "single". (You know they target those things, right?) All summer I got them on my sidebar, but not for the Christian sites. 

I wasn't looking for love, mind you. All summer I focused on me. I got into shape, chopped my long hair off, spent more time with my friends, and even took a trip with my brother (the first time we had ever been able to get along for more than an hour or two). It really was a fun summer. 

When I went back to school I hung out with the same friends as freshman year, but I guess I just wanted more friends. Most of my friends were catholic or tied up in some other kind of doctrine, and I wanted a friend that I could relate to about my faith (I'm a non-denominational born-again Christian. I believe in grace).  It had been a rough first month or two at school, both emotionally and spiritually, and I had just very recently found myself in a good place. The ad offered 10 days free on their site, and I clicked. 

I made my profile as true to me as I could, loaded a few headshots of me with my new hair (super short!), and set the search for Auburn. 

There was nobody. 

Hmmph. Ok, there was a creeper in Tuscaloosa that I had to block, and maybe a professor, but other than that, pretty much nothing. After reviewing all my "winks" from random old guys, I got curious and clicked on my top matches.

The first one was some surfer outdoorsy guy in California. Ha, no. That is soooo not me. Then number two was this guy in Tennessee. I automatically assumed he was a hick and drove a truck (says the girl from Alabama). But when I read his profile, it was as though I had written it. I just . . . got it. It wasn't like any of the other profiles I had read that seemed so distant, his seemed real.

I "winked" at him. ;)

He wrote back with a "Hi. What kind of things do you like to do?" or something like that just to get the conversation started. At the end of the second day of talking, he signed his letter ". . . J". On the third day he gave me his whole name, ". . . Jonathan". After writing back and forth constantly for three days straight (and equipped with only his first name and where he went to school), I stalked found him on facebook. What? I wasn't going to pay to talk to him on a dating site, when I had no interest in talking to anyone else. 

From there, we talked on AIM (it was 2008, so this was already old school) every single day for months and months, and started texting after probably a week. I remember being at the Auburn/Tennessee game a couple of weeks after we met, and texting him the play-by-play. And then sending him a picture of the scoreboard after we won. :D

We agreed to meet after just a couple of weeks, and set the date for October 11 in Atlanta. But he had to talk to me on the phone first. He didn't like talking on the phone, and still doesn't. I called him up when he said to, and when I heard his voice all my preconceptions of what he was physically like went out the window. I mean, sure I had seen his picture, but it was just a headshot and made him look like he could have been really tall. Turns out he's just really skinny, haha. And normal male height. But all this time I had been imagining him with a super deep voice and a southern drawl. He had neither. He was just . . . normal. 

We only talked for a few minutes, but then I think we chatted on AIM for the next six hours (this was pretty normal for us). I know, that's a really long time, but it helped us truly get to know each other first since all we could do was talk talk talk. We learned about each other's values and beliefs and goals and dreams during the time that other couples were flirting and trying to impress each other with looks. 

The First Date

The night before I left to drive myself to Atlanta, my friends and I were all hanging out on Samford Lawn (oh, how I miss that place) just sitting around laughing and talking. Of course, they all knew I was going to meet Prince Charming (or in their eyes, a potential serial killer) the next day. "Call me every two hours, ok?" etc. etc. 

The next morning, I got up and headed out. I knew I was losing an hour going east, so techically we left at the same time. At least our clocks were the same, since he drove 3 hours and I drove 2. But anyway, we had found a Starbucks off the byway that looked easy enough to find and decided to meet there so we could just take one car into downtown. Since I wasn't really sure what he looked like, I pulled in and just kind of looked around. I'm not sure how he knew it was me (oh wait, probably from the Alabama tag. Yes, I did indeed just now realize that as I write this).  

I remember feeling slightly awkward when he walked up, and sadly I don't remember the conversation we had on the way to the aquarium. I just remember studying his face. The way his mouth always curls up into a smile when he closes it. His high cheekbones. His pointy chin. And then being in line at the aquarium. It took a little while, so we just talked some more. About what, I don't remember. At this point, it felt more natural to be around him. Kind of like we had known each other a long time, even though we had never met in person before and had been talking for a mere three weeks (although several hours a day, every day). We did our aquarium thing, and I wanted a picture of him so bad. We took one photo together in the middle of the aquarium before we left. 

 

It's  a terrible picture, but it's what we've got. I don't let him keep his hair that short anymore (he's just too handsome with it a bit longer for me to allow that), and I haven't been that skinny in a while. Remember that part where I said I worked out all summer? Yeah, I was still running at this point. 

After the aquarium, he had planned to take me to a hibachi restaurant that was supposedly nearby. We never found it. We drove all over Atlanta because we didn't know where we were. So we remembered that there were some restaurants by the Starbucks where we met up, and headed over there. The area was a cute little newly developed plaza that had expensive condos up top and several restaurants and offices below. We went to Five Guys. :) I'd never been there before, either, so it was nice. I remember Jonathan ripping open the bag for easier access to the mound of fries within, and also mixing ketchup with mayonnaise and pepper to dip them in. Yep, that's him alright. 

After dinner, we had already been together for probably 7 hours, and I didn't want to leave. We sat by a fountain outside and talked for a few more hours. At one point, he looked straight at me, and it was like the Relient K song.

"When I looked into your eyes, and you dared to stare right back, you should've said 'Nice to meet you, I'm your other half'".

I didn't realize this yet, but I had a feeling. We finally chose to part around 10 or 11pm. Hehe, poor guy. I called him when I got back to Auburn to make sure he was still awake and would make it home. Then we started planning our next date. :)

To Be Continued . . .