Fifteen Years

Have you ever glanced at a calendar and realized, "Good gravy! Today is a special day!"

Fifteen years ago today, M and I went on our very first date.

Which didn't really start as a Date date, but more of one of those college things where you're interested in him and he's interested in you and you just sorta hang out and then it turns into something more and you look back later and say, "Hey, that was our first date!"

So, here's the M and Aim story, for those of you who ever wondered.

I was introduced to M by my best friend at the time, who had told me that she had an incredible crush on this volleyball guy and I just had to meet him. "He's really cute, and he plays ball better than anyone I've ever seen, and he's so nice and sweet and and and..." You know how we girls can get about our crushes.

After weeks of hearing about this guy, I finally agreed to stop by his dorm room with her on my way to a date with my current boyfriend, who, by the way, turned out in the end to be a complete turd.

We arrived at his dorm door, knocked, and went in at his call. I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on him. He was wearing Umbra volleyball shorts and a volleyball t-shirt, and was sitting at his desk studying. He had one foot up on the chair, with his arm wrapped around his leg, and the first things that hit me were his beautiful eyes, his dark, dark hair, and his shoulders. Whoa, those shoulders.

Now, according to The Best Friend Code, section 4.26, clause B, paragraph 2, subsection 9, you can't like the same guy your friend does (Thou shalt not crush on your best friend's crush), so I merely thought, "Oooo, she picked a good one!" and left it at that, and went off for my date with the turd.

A few weeks went by, and my friend moved on to a new crush, and I broke up with the turd. I hadn't given any more thought to the cute volleyball player until one day when I left class and passed by a classroom door where M sat, finishing an exam. Dang, he still looked good. The turd sat near him in the same class (Differential Equations, perhaps?) and so, maybe to incite a little jealousy in the turd (I was having a good hair day), I stopped to wave hi to M. He motioned that he'd be done momentarily and to wait for him, so I did.

We sat outside the library and talked for over an hour. I can't even remember what we talked about, but it was nice. Then he went back to his dorm and I went back to Zeta. As I ate lunch that day with my friend in the common room (we had to watch our daily soap over lunch), the house phone rang. Deena answered it, and it was M, inviting us to Movie Night on his dorm floor. It sounded fun, and so agreed to go.

She hung up and said, "Well, that settles it. He likes you." "He does not! Why do you say that?!"

"Because I've known him for a year and he's never invited me to Movie Night. You have one conversation with him outside the library and suddenly we're invited."

So we went to Movie Night with the express purpose of seeing if M did, indeed, like me.

Everyone settled into their seats and M popped the movie into the VCR. Deena and I exchanged a look, and purposely sat on opposite ends of the only empty couch left. I'll be damned if M didn't turn around, survey the situation, and go squeeze himself between Deena and the other end of the couch. She had to move to allow him room. He had sat as far away from me as humanly possible. Well, that settles that, I thought.

Thinking that perhaps he was just shy, I waited until the end of the movie when everyone was milling around, then brought out my best flirty moves. I threw everything I had in my arsenal at him, and more. It was like flirting with a tree. I got no feedback, at all, whatsoever.

It's rather discouraging to flirt and get no response, so I called it an early night and left. Deena, however, stayed and, shall we say, enjoyed some alcoholic beverages with everyone else. She got home later (much later!) and gleefully told me that she had cornered M and asked him, flat out, if he liked me. She said he turned about forty different shades of red and said, "No! Yes! No! Maybe! Are you going to tell her?!" That part cracks me up to this day.

That weekend was Zeta's Blind Date dance, where your friends choose your date for the dance and you are "surprised" that night when he comes to pick you up. Now, those girls with steady boyfriends had their friends arrange everything with the boyfriends, and the rest of us gave strong hints as to who we'd like asked on our behalf. I had broken up with the turd, and had arranged for Deena to ask a friend of ours to go with me, just as friends.

At this point, I sunk to new lows and asked Deena to beg off our friend and instead ask M. She said no freakin' way, that that was rude, and that I couldn't bail on her friend. Sigh. She was right, so I reluctantly went with the friend and wondered all night what it would have been like to go with M.

Well, the friend turned out to want more than just friendship, and I was so not interested (he was fine as friends, but would have made a weasely boyfriend), and so after awhile I begged off with a "headache" and asked to be taken home.

And so it was at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday night that I found myself alone at Zeta (everyone else still being at the dance) thinking, "Shoot, girl, just do it. Call him." Heck, I was in college, which meant that 11:30 at night is not too late to call someone. Especially someone you like.

I had his phone number on a post-it above my desk, where it had been for a couple months since Deena had stuck it there saying, "I'll be at M's studying, if you need me, just call his room." This, of course, being the days before everyone and their grandma had cell phones. So I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed.

He answered. Whew. After a brief conversation ("Whatcha doing?" "Studying." "Oh, how's it going?" "Okay, I guess."), I said something really catchy like, "Hey, how about you come get me and take me for a ride in your new car?" He had recently gotten his Saturn and was quite proud. He barely missed a beat, "Okay! I'll be there in 10!"

Ten minutes later, I climbed into his new car and off we went for a ride around the countryside outside Rolla. We talked, and talked, and talked. And just enjoyed the ride. And finally, as he dropped me back off at Zeta, he asked me out on a Date date for later that day (it was now, of course, Sunday). And it was the end of that Date date that he finally kissed me, only after asking politely, of course.

It was the sort of kiss that blows a girl's socks off and makes her insides go all jelly. I barely held it together on the walk up to Zeta's front door, you know, 'cause I was trying to play it all cool and stuff.

That was October 18, 1992.

And his kisses still blow my socks off and make my insides go all jelly.