The Not-so-sappy Love Story

I was recently reading a MySpace blog of someone I know, and it inspired me to write my own love story. She wrote the story of how she and her husband met and started dating after he dumped his girlfriend, and I have to say, I think it had some errors. But love makes us forget things I'm sure. And change facts around. And omit things. Yup. At any rate, I am going to put this out there, and if anyone thinks I may have an altered state of mind, please fill in the gaps.

So when I started grad school at the University of Arizona, Matt was a second year student. He encouraged me, as he did everyone, to play frisbee and volleyball with the department and to partake of drinks at No Anchovie's afterward. Besides that, he wasn't terribly outgoing. One of my newly-made friends confessed that at the prospective day the previous spring, she and Matt had had 'a thing.' She was drunk and couldn't remember much from it, but he hadn't been friendly to her either since she arrived at school. I thought it was too bad that he wasn't nicer to her, but shortly thereafter I learned he was dating an undergraduate. The horrors! Anyways, in October, our research group took a field trip to Albuquerque for the Annual Meeting, otherwise known as SAHRAfest (trademarked by yours truly). Somehow during this meeting, I was hanging out with Matt all the time. He was so much fun. (Incidentally, it was at this time that I first became friends with Kristin as well, so it was a good trip.) When I got home I told my friends how I was 'in love' with this guy, but that he pretty much had a girlfriend (although not according to him).

Anyways, we started hanging out back in Tucson and were basically known as the department drunks I think. I probably drank more than I should have so that I could flirt with him shamelessly. The other girl hardly ever came out, and sometimes Matt dropped by her house with me in tow, I think basically to make her jealous. They were obviously on the outs by this point. Then the day before Thanksgiving, Matt called me to see if I was coming over to his house that night and mentioned that he and the girl were done. Once again, I got wasted during drinking-games and couldn't drive or walk myself home that night. Matt offered to let me sleep in his bed and he would go sleep somewhere else. I coyly told him he was welcome to sleep in his bed as well. GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER! That night was pretty innocent, and in the morning he kissed me goodbye. I had been expecting him to pretend nothing happened, so I was impressed.

About a week went by before anything else happened. One night he drove me home and I invited him in, but he just said, "Maybe I should take you out to lunch." So I think the next day we went to Pei Wei together on our official first date. I'm pretty sure I had been drinking beforehand at Gentle Ben's as well. At any rate, it wasn't anything to write home about, but ever since then we were basically together.

We definitely had some rough patches after that, what with Matt making plans to get his PhD and me having another year left for my Master's. At one point he said he was going to Canada without me and didn't want to do the long distance thing, so I made him take all his stuff out of my apartment and leave his key behind. A few days later I called him and asked him to come over and basically begged him to take me back. At some point in that time period I yelled at him, literally, that he was stupid for thinking I didn't mean that much to him. He claims at that point he realized I was right. When he found out he couldn't start school in Canada until the folowing January, he asked if he could move in with me. That fall we decided to move to New Mexico instead of Canada. And then in December he told me for the first time that he had been looking at rings. He didn't propose until almost the end of February, leading to some awkward situations with our parents, but it was a fantastic proposal and worth the wait. And then we got married the next year.

So we are currently a few months shy of having known each other for 3 years and have been married for nearly 3 months. I had some hesitation back in the beginning what with the girl he was dating and the girl I was friends with, but it all worked out. I found out his not-girlfriend had voted for Proposition 200 and then didn't feel bad at all about breaking them up. And my friend was totally okay with everything and we definitely still joke about it. And now - well the love story is ongoing right?