I had lived in New York for all but the first three months of my life. Several years back, my company had asked me to relocate to Raleigh, NC, but at the time I could not because the man I was with worked for the state. Moving would have meant him losing his pension/retirement, so we stayed up north.
Once we got divorced, I was free to go and luckily the needs of the company had changed. They were happy about me moving to NC, but no longer needed me to live in Raleigh. They just said I had to be able to drive to Raleigh if needed. Well, anyone who knows my wanderlust knows that long drives are in my blood. I mean, I spent a full year driving back and forth from NY to NC, bringing my belongings down, one trailer load at a time.
I ended up choosing the Camp Lejeune area. My father had been a Marine and since his passing, I've struggled quite a bit. I felt that being around other Marines might help me to feel closer to him (it has). I also have an affinity for water, and so knowing that the area was right on the Crystal Coast and I could drive to the beach after work on rough days was a perk for me. Plus it is a short couple hours drive to Raleigh from there. Easy Peasy.
So, back to the story: I was in my new place. I had been there for about two weeks, one of which was spent on a business trip out of town. I was renting a room from a friend and he had to go out of town for work, so I was alone. My girlfriend had watched football with me, but had gone home after it ended.
I am a computer geek so I do everything online, including the whole online dating thing. But, you have to have rules and standards for online dating. I would weed people out with a few things. The first is if they actually read my profile or simply looked at the pictures. It is pretty easy to tell. I listed in my profile that I have Celiac Disease and must be Gluten Free. I also listed that my daddy was a Marine and that I volunteer with the VA and other Veteran Organizations.
The other thing that I would use to weed people out was whether or not they opened the conversation with a sentence or just wrote "Hi" because to me, just writing hello to someone was a cop-out. If you couldn't take the effort to form a complete sentence, what type of effort would you put into dating?
I had guys reach out with just Hi and for the most part I ignored them. Most, if not all, would come back with a nasty comment after not getting a reply. Then there was the ones who would message me in conversation "Why would you want to live here, you should have stayed in NY, I hate the Marines." So clearly, they didn't read my profile. You don't tell the daughter of a Marine that you hate Marines.
My favorite were the guys who tried to impress me with cooking and would say "oh, you're Italian? I have the best restaurant to take you to. Their pasta is amazing and wait until you try their fresh bread." which told me that they hadn't bothered to read the part about Celiac Disease or Gluten Free. So, easy to weed out the ones that couldn't be bothered. Let's just say that I went to bed disappointed that Sunday night. Horrible conversations.
So, the next day, I decided that I wasn't going to wait for the guys to reach out to me. I sent a few messages out and I made sure to include a question relating to their profile, so they knew I had read it. With this one guy, his profile said he was 37 (same age as me at the time) and that he worked in Government. I could tell by the pictures that they weren't recent, but the profile was interesting enough for me to talk to him. So I sent a message that basically said "Hey there, what branch of Government do you work in?"
When he replied back that he was a Police Officer, I quipped "uh oh, are you the Deputy that gave me that citation last fall?" knowing full well that he wasn't (I remember the Sheriff that pulled me over vividly - he was at least ten years younger than I was). From there we talked about why I asked. I told him I don't date politicians, so thank God he wasn't a senator lol. From that point we exchanged numbers and began texting, rather than using the dating site. After an hour of chatting, we decided to meet for coffee that same night. I mean literally, it was only a few hours later - enough time to get dressed and run out the door.
When we were talking to plan the date, Hubs was really sweet because I had let him know in advance that my Mother was coming to visit and I would not be available later in the week. He also knew that I was new to the area (having only been in my place for a few weeks) and he offered for our first date to give me a tour of the historic waterfront, so that I would have someplace to show my Mom when she arrived.
So, I arrive early and I'm sitting in my SUV waiting for him to arrive, on the phone with a friend saying "please let him drive a truck." Please don't think less of me. It's just that truck driving guys are a different type of guy. My dad drove trucks my whole life. I learned to drive on a truck. Plus we're in the south and I wanted a man's man. I had gone on multiple bad dates with car driving men. In the south, real men drive trucks. So, I wanted a truck driving man - or at the least, an SUV. Don't judge me.
One guy had picked me up in a beautiful corvette and then couldn't handle the clutch properly. It is never impressive when you can drive a stick better than the guy. Sorry Charlie. Another had a beater car that was not well maintained and unfortunately neither was he. Hygiene is important! I believe that how people take care of themselves and their belongings says a lot about them.
Anyway, this beautiful slate colored truck pulled up, so I was breathing a sigh of relief. Now, he had said we were going to park and walk. I still had the majority of my belongings in my storage unit (as my rental was fully furnished and my room didn't have a lot of closet space), so the only walking shoes I had available were my workout sneakers. I had worn them, jeans and a cute, but plain, long sleeved shirt. I was not dressed up, and out he steps from his truck wearing nice shoes, dressy jeans, a nice polo shirt with a sweater and a black jacket. I'm sure he was not impressed and I definitely figured he would not be wanting a second date.
He was kind though and walked me on the dock under the road (it is really cool because it is a four-lane road that you can either try to walk across, or you can go waterfront and pass underneath it. I loved it. Once we got to the other side, he started telling me about the restaurants, outlining which ones offered Gluten Free foods. He had paid attention. He had even gone so far as to tell me that he had looked up Celiac Disease. He was great at cooking and that if things worked out, I could teach him how to make stuff Gluten Free. He was sure he'd be able to cook for me.
We arrived at the coffee shop, which he had picked because he didn't want to put me on the spot about eating, and the Gluten Free issues, on our first date. He wanted me to be able to relax and have a good time. So, we got coffees and sat and talked... about everything. It was so easy to talk to him and I thought the conversation flowed well.
We had talked about my Dad being a Marine and all of the things that I didn't realize were Marine Corps driven that he had taught me growing up. Hubs said that he could recognize that I was the daughter of a Marine, just by how I was. He talked about some of his experiences in Service and during Deployments and was surprised that he felt comfortable telling them to me. We both really enjoyed talking to each other.
I threw out all of the potential deal breakers that those before him had throw at me. Aside from the Celiac Disease being too hard to deal with (and too expensive). I have significant scarring from surgeries that some have told me were unattractive. Then there was the big one... due to multiple medical reasons, I can't grow tiny humans. So, I told him that if things worked out between us, the only way we would be able to grow our family was through Foster Care or Adoption. I mentioned my interest in the Foster to Adopt programs offered throughout the country.
That conversation was one that I believed fused us together. He indicated to me that he had one biological child already, and so he did not need any more biological children. He also told me that he had been a Foster Kid and so those programs were very important to him. He had always intended to grow his family via Foster to Adopt. What are the odds? This is usually a huge issue and here he was, already on the same page.
So, from there, we talked about getting together again after my Mom's visit was over, and we walked back to the vehicles. But, we didn't leave from there. He mentioned the docks went in another direction, bordering the salt marshes. So we walked up that way too, he filled me in on the historical details, but we also continued chatting.
Mind you, it was February 8th, and while the days in NC are not cold, the temperature drops significantly once the sun goes down and here we were at 9pm walking waterfront. When the date ended, and I got in the car, I was completely frozen. The date had gone so well, I hadn't noticed until it ended that I was actually cold.
He didn't try to give me a kiss goodbye. He was very polite and was extremely gentlemanly. He opened my car door for me. We had a wonderful date (in my opinion).
Even though we had intended to wait until after my mother's visit, we texted that night and the next day and decided to get together both Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. To be honest, things seemed too good to be true. I had been burned several times and I didn't trust my judgement. I wanted to be sure I wasn't getting swept up.
Because of this, I wanted him to meet my roommate. My roommate (landlord) was an Active Duty Marine and had been helping me weed out some of the bad eggs - like the dude who was supposedly Active Duty with EOD but had a full face beard with a no shave chit (no self respecting Marine pulls the no shave chit nonsense), and said he did PT from 6 to 9am daily (roomie called BS on that guy, since nobody does PT 3 hours a day, especially for EOD).
So Hubs came by after work Tuesday and Wednesday to hang out. He threw me off a little because each night we spent time together, he still didn't try to give me a goodnight kiss and at one point when I leaned in, he turned his head so I kissed his cheek.
My Mom got to town that Thursday. I told her about my dates and that I thought he wasn't interested in me romantically, but that we would probably end up friends - figured he was putting me in the friendzone. He was very respectful of my time with her, but we still said goodnight and texted in the evenings. That Friday, he sent me flowers for no reason other than to be sweet. Boy was I confused.
Flowers from Hubs
That Saturday, I did end up taking my mother to the historic waterfront like he suggested, but that was our final meal together of the trip. It was cut short by a freak snowstorm coming in up north. She and her husband had a ten hour drive home, through the mountains of West Virginia (dangerous to drive in snow), and she was nervous that if they didn't leave Saturday, they wouldn't make it home safely. We said our goodbyes after that waterfront lunch and they were on their way.
The Sunday following was Valentine's Day. Another bouquet of flowers showed up at my house, this time with a card asking me if I would be his Valentine. I was floored. Here I was thinking he just wanted to be friends. So I texted him to say thank you and I would be happy to be his Valentine. I also let him know that my mother had left early due to the weather up north and he asked if he could stop by after he got out of work.
Valentine's Day Flowers
At the time, he was working 911 dispatch and was getting out at 7pm, so after the hour drive home to change and the half hour drive to my house, he would arrive at 8:30pm. That gave me plenty of time to dress up and make myself look pretty. My roommate and his girlfriend were home and we had made a delicious dinner and had broken out a bottle of wine. It was looking to be a sweet evening, double date style Valentine's Day.
Well, Hubs surprised me big time because when he arrived and knocked on the door, everyone yelled "come in" but he didn't. So, I got up to let him in and when I opened the door, he swept me into an amazingly romantic kiss. The kind that happens in the movies. He had wanted our first kiss to be special and so he waited until Valentine's Day to do it.
That is just the kind of man he is. He wants things to be special. I tried to explain to him much later on in our relationship that every day with him is special and that he doesn't need to wait for certain dates or events, but if he didn't do things his way, he wouldn't be him. I love him for keeping me on my toes, always. It is never a dull moment with us.
So, that is how we met... the extended version. I'm sorry to be so long winded but all of the little details are so important to me. If you made it this far, thank you for reading it all.
Our First Photo Together
No comments:
Post a Comment
Have something to share? Comment here: