When I Met Her

A girl I was sort of dating introduced me to her.

It was kind of a weird situation. I was quasi-dating this girl - we weren't really in a relationship, she was odd, I wasn't looking for a relationship and...she was odd - and I was transferring to the college that Odd Girl was attending. (Wasn't going there to be near her - was going there because it was a state university, they accepted me and it was affordable.) I had to attend an orientation at the school and Odd Girl said "Well, you can't stay with me, but I have a friend you can stay with. You might like her better anyway."

Like I said. She was odd. But she also ended up being right.

Anyway, after she assured me that the friend was okay with it, I agreed. I had no money for a hotel, it was for just one night and I figured that one night with her sorority sister wouldn't be the worst place in the world to stay.

Um, yeah.

When Odd Girl introduced me to her friend/my host/future wife, I was more than pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't have put it past Odd Girl to house me with some sort of mutant, but she'd done exactly the opposite. She'd arranged for me to stay the night with an amazingly beautiful, intelligent, funny girl. She seemed immediately at ease with me spending the night on her sofa and any unease I had at causing her any unease was immediately erased.

We clicked.

We stayed up most of the night talking. She told me about her family. I told her about mine. We talked about movies. We talked about the school. We talked about a lot of things and it was easy. I remember at some point in the conversation she told me that she wasn't dating anyone and I was immediately relieved without really recognizing why. Nothing happened that night - I had no game and I wouldn't have tried anything with a girl who was nice enough to host her odd friend's not-really-boyfriend for an evening - but I remember thinking that I really, really liked this girl.

She made me breakfast the next morning - bacon and eggs - and I was purposely late to the orientation because I didn't want to say goodbye. She told me to call her when the quarter started if I needed any help or had any questions or whatever.

I went home after the orientation and my best friend asked me about the trip and all I could talk about was the girl I stayed with. He was pretty surprised because I'd been adamant about not wanting a relationship and the way I was talking about her, I wasn't talking about some hot chick I just wanted to hook up with.

She was different.

(Note: I was not relationship-phobic in my early twenties. But I'd ended a long three yr relationship about six months earlier and it ended badly and I wasn't looking for that kind of entanglement again any time soon.)

A few weeks later, I moved into the place I was going to live at the university. (Odd Girl and I were done - a product of her oddness and me being interested in her friend.) It took me a few days, but I finally called her. Which was very unlike me. It was more likely that I would've thought about calling her and then just not done it for any number of stupid reasons - I was a male in my early twenties and following through on things wasn't my strong point. But I couldn't shake her and after a few false starts of picking up the phone and not having the guts to dial the number, I finally did it.

And she was happy to hear from me and I asked her out and she said yes.

And about a month and a half later, we were standing on the beach and I told her I loved her. She said she loved me, too.

I just wanted to tell that story.