Blog Half Marathon - Day 2
This post of part of a 13 day "half marathon" blog challenge" in which I am chronicling our marriage, the best advice we have received thus far, as well as lessons learned over the past 9 years.
This post of part of a 13 day "half marathon" blog challenge" in which I am chronicling our marriage, the best advice we have received thus far, as well as lessons learned over the past 9 years.
You know how in most of those cheesy romance novels (both Christian and non-Christian), the main female and male characters start off hating each other? And then they suddenly realize that they have actually been in love for most of the story?
That's our story. Sort of.
Dave started out attending a local community college, then transferred to another college out of (his) state. While at this school, he started having dreams about going to another college - Messiah College in Grantham, PA. He was a marketing major and a soccer player and let's just say he liked to socialize more than study.
I went to Messiah College. I was a former homeschooler who looked the part (go ahead, chime in, roomies). Although I was trying to figure out how exactly to look as cool as the rest of my friends, I wasn't really succeeding.
Exhibit A:
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| I'm on the right. |
I was a French education major and I didn't socialize all that much.
At the end of my sophomore year (Dave was a semester ahead of me), I went with a guy friend to his room for a rousing game of Monopoly. That was the most ridiculous game of Monopoly I've ever played. Imagine a game with opponents who are all business majors of some sort and who play the game by making business deals on every turn: "I'll give you Park Place if you give me 10% of your profits." EVERY TURN. Drove me crazy. They were all outgoing, boisterous and having a great time. Dave was there (my friend's roommate) and for some reason he stood out to me, and not in a good way. I came home and wrote in my journal, "Dave Spence is an idiot" and never thought about him again. To this day, Dave has no remembrance of me being a part of that game, probably because I looked like a dorky homeschooler and that wasn't exactly his taste at the time.
Also, to this day, we cannot play Monopoly together. It is just really bad for our marriage. (Playing that game with a real estate agent is impossible.)
Also, to this day, we cannot play Monopoly together. It is just really bad for our marriage. (Playing that game with a real estate agent is impossible.)
Fast forward to our senior year of college. I had just returned from a year in Strasbourg, France and from the transformation, you would have thought I had just been a contestant on "What Not to Wear".
Exhibit B:
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| Again, on the right. |
The same guy friend from the Monopoly game lived across the hall in our on-campus apartment building, Dave was his roommate and Dave and I had a class together where I randomly happened to sit two seats in front of him. I just couldn't get away from this guy. In a moment of reverse culture shock desperation, I decided it would be a great idea to date my guy friend. That didn't work out so well, but in the meantime, Dave started coming over to our apartment to "study". I use that term loosely because the first time he showed up to "study", he had no textbook, no notebook, no notes, not even a pen to write with. I summoned up an awesome teacher look, pretentiously declared that if he thought he was going to use my notes to study, he had another thing coming. And then I sent him back to his apartment to get his stuff. It was during that study session, as I tried to keep us on track, that he looked up at me and good-naturedly informed me: "You're so...traditional." I'm not really sure what that meant, but it definitely pointed out one of the many differences between us.
There honestly was no attraction between us in the beginning, although we quickly became buddies. Dave was, and still is, a lot of fun. He can make anyone talk, he likes everybody, and he cares sincerely about everyone he knows. We ate lunch together, walked to class together, ran errands together, actually studied together, talked and laughed a lot. I was more relaxed and comfortable around him than I had ever been around any other guy...or any other girl friend, for that matter. I felt like I was the most myself with him.
However, somewhere in there, the lightbulb clicked on. There was that moment of, Ohhhhh, I think I really like you.
The problem was that we weren't really in alignment values-wise and that was a huge issue...
To Be Continued...
How about you? How did you and your husband meet?
How about you? How did you and your husband meet?
Sharing with: Time Warp Wife, Far Above Rubies, Growing Home, NOBH
My husband and I met at a Creation Research Conference. I was one of only 2 single females in attendance (and we both married within the next year to guys we met there...go figure). Doug and I knew we had a lot in common simply because we were both in attendance. He saw me across the room and decided to try to meet me. We didn't actually meet until lunchtime on the second (and last) day when we ended up next to each other in the lunch line and I laughed at a joke he told to someone else. We ended up eating at the same table (no coincidence on his part) and talked between sessions for the rest of the afternoon. Unbeknownst to me, on the way home from the conference he kept telling himself he was going to marry me. But I was living in Mississippi and he was living in Virginia. However, we emailed back and forth after the conference and found we really did have a LOT in common - similar backgrounds, similar families, simliar views, similar sense of humor. Then, 3 weeks after the conference, I got a job teaching in North Carolina - just an hour and a half from where he lived - and after I moved we started dating. It took us less than 2 months of dating to decide we were going to get married. We were an instant fit and still can't get enough of each other, even after more than 2 years of marriage.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what happened next! =) My husband and I met when we both became part of a theater play for the Singles Ministry. I had a boyfriend then and he was eyeing someone else but we kept the friendship. When we both became single again, we knew we were meant to be! Wedding bells came next!
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I worked at the same place as my husband for 4 years and I didn't like him at all for any of that time. I found him arrogant, and a show-off who thought the world stopped and started with him! I saw him as outspoken and rude!... I had no time for him and he had no time for me, (I was the attention seeking, teen-mum who thought she knew everything and was always ready to fight anyone to prove it!)
ReplyDeleteWe eventually began hanging out through a bunch of mutual friends, and actually became friends ourselves. Then same as you I realised I could be more myself with him than anyone else...I had given up men for God....God told me this was 'The One', I told God He was crazy!
:) Hahahaha 12 years later, God knew..I didn't!
Isn't it fun to see how God works? I met my husband at a bar, but dated his friend. Later, we started to date, and that was it for both of us. We were married within a couple of years. We both joke that if we had met each other in high school we would have disliked each other intensely. I commented recently that God was still doing a lot of work on us both in that time. :-)
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