Since tomorrow is our 15 year wedding anniversary, I thought I would share how the the Mrs. and I started dating. (I actually wrote this a a long time ago over several emails to a friend from college.)
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As for the wife... well I could lie and say I was at some hot party in the city, full of actors and models when I met her, but the truth is actually a better story. (Of course I also tell it better in person.) I have always wanted to type it out, so this is two birds with one stone. If this gets too drawn out I apologize...
Okay, first off, I was working the night shift in a warehouse. Social life pretty much bit. I was partying on the weekends and had some dates here and there but nothing to brag about. Well, every so often this girl would come out of the office at night and walk past, through the warehouse. A buddy of mine would just go crazy. "Man this chick is Hot!" And it was no lie. She had long blond hair, yellow eyes, and an awesome body with a pair of legs that just wouldn't quite. And she looked like she knew it too. I had dealt with girls like this in the past. I figured what's the point; she isn't going to take a second look at us anyway. Which she didn't.
I found out more about her over the next couple of months. Her mom worked in the warehouse on days and very good looking for her age; good sign that the girl isn't going to lose her looks as she gets older. And come to find out the “Hotty” was a model. Couldn't figure out what she was doing in an office job. Didn't really put any more though into it and just went on with life.
A few months pass, and the warehouse is going through inventory. So a lot of the office employees are out with us warehouse grunts counting parts. I get stationed on the second floor. The floor is a grate that you can see to the first floor. Well low and behold little miss hotty is working right below me. Another guy and I are just cutting it up while we are working and we try to get her to talk, but she just stays cold and ignores us. I guess she didn't like the "Heart Breaker" reference or something.
A short time later I get an offer to go to days and work in Customer Service. Now I can get my life into a normal routine again. Not the night owl sleeping all day thing. Well I start making some new friends in the office and start to find out more about the "The Hotty". Come to find out she works as a Buyer dealing with the UK and France. And she has a boyfriend in England. How can you compete with that? Definitely out of my league.
Every so often, on my way to lunch I would pass her on the way to my car. Never getting much eye contact and she pretty much just kept to herself. Often I would see her standing at the FAX machine and find myself thinking, "Just once, and I could die a happy man." I happened to mention this to a guy who was training me for a new position, that I had just been promoted to, and he agreed. Turns out he'd been after her for years, but she won’t go out with him. She does talk to him though and they seem on friendly terms.
After starting the new position, I began to have more contact with the rest of the office, including "The Hotty". I realized I was never going to get anywhere with her, but I figured maybe she has some hot Model friends. So I start to work in some moderate chitchat during work issue conversations. I noticed she has pictures of her cat at her desk, so I add something at the end of an e-mail including her cat. She started to warm up to me and we started e-mailing back and forth about personal stuff more than work related things. This continued on for a couple of months but nothing more than that.
Now that I an working days my social life had picked up. I would head into the city to see my buddies to party, and even had a couple girlfriends come and go. Still nothing to rave about (Matter a fact pretty scary, but let’s not go there.) By this point in time I had taken a part time gig tending bar on the weekends and had my own apartment. (two blocks from the bar I worked at no doubt.) I ran into "The Hotty" one night out at another local bar. Where I actually had to be the stand in Boyfriend for her to get some guys to leave her alone. Old "Mister Nice Guy" comes to the rescue again. Always the nice guy, never "The" guy. Oh well.
Then one Friday out of the blue, “The Hotty” asks me to come out with her and some of her friends. Work friends mind you, no models. My theory about her having good looking friends fell through the floor. Oh well. But I had to work that night so I had to decline. The next Friday she asked me again, but I was scheduled to work again. A couple weeks pass and “The Hotty” says that they are all going out on Friday again. Finally I have the night off and say that I will meet up with them. Well, I am not walking into some club all by myself, so I call up one of my buds to go with. That way at least I have a wing man if I feel out of place.
We meet up at this club called "Cody's". It's your typical suburb night club: pretty big dance floor, two huge bars, pool tables and the big screen TV's on the walls. I show up and know a couple of the girls from work, and meet their boyfriends. No luck on anything unattached or attractive for that matter. Of course “The Hotty” is by herself since her boyfriend lives in the UK. Well the music starts getting pretty good and a bunch of us head out to the dance floor. “The Hotty” is a great dancer and we move well together, which is driving me crazy. I keep my distance (at least 2"), because I don't want her to get the wrong idea and get pissed off at me. But damn is it hard. Especially when Nine Inch Nails, "I want to fuck you like an animal" is playing. Damn, this was just too much. The girl knows how to move.
Later we are all sitting at some tables talking in a group as the bar is calling last call. By this time I am watching "Clash of the Titans" on one of the big screens. Not ignoring the group or anything, but I just love that movie. So as everybody is getting ready to leave, I mention that I am going to go home and watch the rest of the movie. “The Hotty” says that’s a good idea, and that she is going to do that same. I hadn't noticed she had been watching it too, but on the screen behind me to the left. Not thinking that she would, I offered that she could come over to my place and watch it with me. To my surprise, she says, "Sure, I'll follow you." I had to ask her again because I wasn't sure that I heard her correctly. She said she's loved this movie since she was a kid, and it was better to watch it with someone, then by herself. Needless to say she got in her car and followed me home.
At the time I lived in an old house that had been chunked up in to little apartments. My living room was an addition to the house at one time. You could tell by the fact that old windows on the brick wall had been filled in with book shelves. It had character. Once we get to my place I open the door, flipped the lights on, turned on the TV and offered to get something to drink. She asked if it was safe to use the bathroom. I asked what she meant by “safe”, and she replied that she had been to some other guy friends apartments and that the bathroom was not always cleaned very well. In other words "not safe". I said I think you'll be fine. She came out with this huge look of surprise. I asked what was wrong. "It's so clean", she says. She even commented on that the whole apartment was clean. She then accused me of cleaning up before I went out just in case I brought someone home with me. I let her know that I am a little anal about my stuff and that I like to keep my apartment clean. Needless to say she was very surprised.
We sat and half watched the remainder of the movie, but tended to talk about this and that. Mind you, we sat at opposite ends of the couch. She had a boyfriend, and I was not about to make a pass at her and ruin the nice friendship we were building. Next came my turn to be surprised.
After the movie we continued to talk. She noticed that on my shelves I had several "Star Wars" books. She proceeded to tell me that she was a huge Star Wars fan. When she was a kid she had her whole room wallpapered with Star Wars cards and had every action figure they made. Later on I found she liked comic books and video games as well. Okay, at this point it’s getting weird. She is the coolest female I have ever met in my life, and the hottest to boot. Major problem, she has a boyfriend.
We continued to talk till about 5 in the morning, and then she headed home. I went to bed loving life and cursing it at the same time. We continue to have our little chit chats at work that week, with a little more flirtation on both ends. I had to work the next Friday, but “The Hotty” came over on Saturday night about 11 p.m. after she had been out with her friends. We then sat up talking till about 7 a.m. The sun was coming up when she left to go home. We had talk about so many things, and found that we had a lot in common. Found out that we had both grown up about the same, single parent and scrapping to get by. We both had the same desire to be more than how we grew up. After she walked out the door, I looked in the mirror and told myself that I was in trouble. I was falling for this girl hard. The closest I had come to touching her was rubbing her neck for a few minutes because she had a headache. The sexual tension was becoming more than I could handle.
The next week the flirting became even more intense, and she revealed that she hadn't been seeing the guy in England for some time. She had been using him as a front so people wouldn't bother her about going out with her. Well, needless to say the relationship rose to the next level not long after. From then on we pretty much spent all our free time together.
About 8 months later my mom made a comment about how much time we spent together and asked me if I was going to do anything about it. I knew what she was talking about and it hadn't even crossed my mind till then. It didn't really take much thought though. I always said that if I was with someone and didn't find myself looking at other girls, then I had found the one. My time table was a little off. Here I was 23 and didn't plan on getting married till at least 30. But I knew if I didn't marry this girl I would be kicking myself for the rest of my life.
So off I went to find a ring, and a short time later I popped the question. (During the X-files while eating Chinese food, with a Barbie doll wearing a wedding dress wrapped in a Victoria Secret's box. She thought I was giving her snow boots.) She cried, she said yes, and life was good. 11 months later we had a huge ceremony and the "Hotty" and I said, "I do."
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| Engagement photo |
