Anniversaries

Gena Showalter is celebrating her 11th anniversary, and posted the story of how she and her husband met. That made me want to tell my "cute meet" story (thought it's not really cute) and it's not fair to hijack her blog to do it, so I'll bore you all here, instead.

I met Jim 17 years ago on the third day of classes my freshman year of college. His frat (Delta Tau Delta) always had the first party of the year, despite not being the coolest frat on the hill. My roommate was in two of his classes, so they were talking. I wasn't paying much attention, just hanging out watching everyone else get drunk. Laura turns to me and says, "Jim wants to show me what a frat room looks like."

Whoop Whoop! Danger! Danger!

I was NOT going to let her go up there alone. So we went up and admired his bright sky-blue walls and the afghan his grandmother had knitted that he stuffed over the curtain rod so the sun didn't wake him in the morning. He was a perfect gentleman and is still offended and amused by my protective instincts.

Fast forward two months later. Jim and I had become "acquaintances" by virtue of I had had a disastrous first-time situation and sworn off men. The next day, Jim calls. Invites me to the fraternity's barn party. I say sure. The day before the party, I went to a movie with one of DTD's pledges. I liked Eric Schutzbank a lot, but ONLY...wait, that's not strong enough...ONLY...that's better...as a friend. He asked me to go to his pledge formal. My first thought was "what if Jim asks me?" and my second thought was "don't encourage Eric."

Trying to make this long story shorter: I said no to Eric, gave lame reasons, Jim asked me, I told Eric the truth, he gave me his blessing, and the rest is history. Except for the 8 beers and subsquent tree-trips it took Jim to get up the courage to ask me to the formal. But we won't talk about that.

To read more about fraternity influence on my romance, check out my bio.