To my surprise, it was Ryan!! He admitted that he usually waited for a woman to contact him first because he was tired of getting rejected. (Poor guy) He took my "wink" as a sign that I approved and decided to make the next move. For the next week or so, we exchanged 5-10 novel-length emails a day. I found myself staying up really late to finish my email, or waking up really early to see if I'd gotten one from him. Once in a while I'd get one from him in the wee hours of the morning, saying that he'd been thinking of me and couldn't sleep.
On May 14th (the day that we consider our actual anniversary) we decided to meet face-to-face. I was so excited, but SO nervous. I can honestly say that the worst part about online dating is the first date. You never know what the guy will really be like. I raced home from work, showered (again), redid my makeup, and paced the kitchen for a half hour until it was time for our date. Ryan later admitted that he'd shown up two hours early because he was so anxious, and had decided to pass the time by wandering the nearby mall.
Our first date was, let's just say, a little more than awkward. We're both SUPER shy and were stumbling on all of the random silent moments. He took me out to Olive Garden because after serving a mission in Italy, it was the only thing close enough to authentic Italian cooking. *Side note: we had our wedding luncheon at Olive Garden in homage to our first date*... Then after dinner, he took me downtown to watch a live comedy improv show called "Laughing Stock." I'd told him in one of my emails that my favorite TV show was the improv show "Who's Line Is It Anyway?", so he planned our first date around that. Again, it was awkward. We parked downtown and had no idea where the place was. After being lost for a good 20 minutes, we finally found the place. The show was hilarious, but the company even better. When we got out of the show, I saw that I'd missed about 20 texts from my mom. She decided to offer some laughter and possibly crash our date by sending the world's most random texts. I'll share a few: "I like toast," "My feet stink," "Don't touch that!!," and "I like cake." We sat and laughed at my mom for a bit and then we had to endure the 20 minute car ride home. I'd like to thank my mother for bringing down the anxiety with her texts.
On the way home we had run out of things to talk about because we'd already talked about everything in our emails. Ryan sheepishly admitted that he'd had a "cheat sheet" of questions that he'd brought along. I stole it from him and started down the list. By the time we got to my house, there was one that stuck out that I just had to ask. It said, "If you could ask me 3 things and get an honest answer, what would you ask?" His questions surprised me....First, "Did you have a good time?" second, "Do you know how beautiful you looked tonight?" and third, "Would you be averse to a second date?".
The next day while I was on a walk with my mom, I couldn't stop talking about how amazing Ryan was. She rolled her eyes at me when I said "Mom, I seriously think I'm going to marry this man." .... After one month of dating we said "I love you," we were engaged after 112 days of dating, but I knew from the second I met him that I wanted to marry him, that's not a lie.
It may not be the normal dating story, but it's perfect for us. It encompasses everything about us and we still laugh about some of the awkward moments to this day. And as they say, the rest is history....
