changes, part 2

to continue on, we now talk about...

the good.

august 8, 2012.

i got a boyfriend.


so in the midst of my mom being sick, one would wonder how i had time to pursue a relationship. i didn't, really. it just sort of happened. and as it turns out, it was exactly what i needed.

i am not one who has a lot of relationship experience. before dave, i had one major relationship. and it was not the best. it lasted four years, and it took me almost that long to essentially find myself again. i gave up a lot of myself during that four years, and it was a difficult road to reassemble the pieces. i tried the online dating thing, but it didn't really work out. i went on one date. and some of the guys who contacted me were just weird.

there was this one guy, he seemed pretty nice, so we exchanged a few messages. one day he asked me if i was talking to anyone else. i was like yeah. to me, a dating website is like a party. you're there to meet people. you have to talk to people and get to know them, especially before going out and meeting a complete stranger. apparently, this was a big deal to him. even though we were just talking and had made no commitment to each other. so i ran the other way. and what ticked me off about it was that he wouldn't let it go. in fact, he compared it to cheating and hitting a girl, both of which are completely unrelated to talking to more than one person at a time on a dating website.

anyway, one of my friends was moving, and she had a few beatles things she wanted to get rid of. naturally, i was more than happy to take them off her hands. one day she texts me with something along the lines of "i know a nice guy who posts cute kitten pictures on facebook. want to meet him?" pretty random way to describe someone, but sure. what the hell.

so we decided to get together at her place, along with her husband, and two of their friends, who was dave's best friend and wife. i also got to meet her son for the first time. he was so cute (still is). anyway, it wasn't love at first sight, or anything like that. to use dave's favorite expression, it was "meh". we didn't even really talk. he played with the baby, was playing games with the boys, and pretty much checking me out from the corner of his eye. so the night ends, we go home. not sure what to expect at this point, but i figure it is what it is. get home, find facebook friend requests from all three of them. dave then posted a picture of the evolution of beatles hair on my wall, and asked me about my brother and how he was a fan of the band he plays in.

and that was it.

about a week later, i get a request to play words with friends with dave. so i accept, and find he has said hi as well. that's really when it started. it took a game of words with friends for him to talk to me. so we went back and forth, playing words, me losing badly. we just talked about random stuff, and i found myself really looking forward to it. even though i was working an 8-5 job, i found myself staying up past my bedtime just to talk to him. this was right when my mom got sick. and everyday he would ask how she was. that meant a lot to me, especially since we were still getting to know each other, and he knew how stressed i was.

about a week after our first game, a bunch of people were getting together to play games. this was probably the first time we actually talked. he managed to get the seat next to me. we were playing apples to apples and he was showing me his cards, one was a big hug. after the game, we went to the 5th street diner. we were there until almost 2am, and he even paid for my food. granted i only had a grilled ham and cheese, but still. it was a nice gesture. and sneaky too. i went to the bathroom, came back, and he had taken my check. he hugged me good night, and it seemed like he was really nervous. he even texted me to make sure i got home ok.

then on august 1, we had our first date. we ended up going out to lunch at applebee's because he works second shift, and i worked first, plus whenever i was scheduled at joann's. since my lunch break was an hour, and early enough for him to get to work on time, it seemed like a good choice. he was waiting for me when i got there. i went to give him a hug, and bam. he kissed me. sneaky guy. not that i minded, really. just caught me by surprise. he entertained me with stories of the library where he works. i wasn't very talkative, mostly because i was stressed and really tired from working and spending my evenings at the hospital. he was very understanding about it too. we had a good time. i know we were both sad when my lunch hour ended. so he kissed me good-bye, and i went back to work. still tired, but happy just the same.

later that day, i went to the hospital to see my mom. my brother left his lights on and needed to be jumped. so i went out to help him. we get his truck going and he says "you know you need a new tire, right?" huh? he points out that there's a flap of rubber peeling off my tire. so i park my car, curse my luck, and go back in. once visiting hours were over, i booked it over to pep boys. it was near closing time, so they almost weren't going to do it. i think the guy knew i was upset, so he did it out of pity. they put the tires on, and the guy says to me "i hate to tell you this, but you need breaks". that was it. that was the emotional breaking point of the day.  i sat in my car and cried. i was talking to dave, who had just finished working, and he told to me stay there, he would come over. so i waited. and then i get a phone call. "how do you get to pep boys?" i don't know why, but it made me laugh. i told him, and he came. he hugged me, and sat in the parking lot with me for two hours, just talking. it was just what i needed that day.

a week later, he asked me to be his girlfriend. and the rest, as they say, is history.

he came into my life when i needed him. he met me at my worst and still managed to see through it. he makes me laugh, he makes me smile. he knows what i need. like when i got "laid off" he knew i was really upset. he came to my house, and just held open his arms. didn't say a word. he just hugged me, and i felt so much better.

and at almost a year later, i'm so glad he's in my life. we talk every day, although we've moved up to facebook messenger. neither or us are big phone people, so it works. we still play words with friends all the time. i still lose. i can honestly say i've never won. but the scores are sometimes more evenly matched. only sometimes though.

he's a nerd, and awkward and sometimes really strange, but i wouldn't have him any other way.

i can't say for certain what the future holds, but i know it, he knows it and everybody else knows it. just gotta wait for dave time to catch up to real world time....