How We Met

During my last semester of college, I began working at a tutoring place.  When I first started, my job title was a run-of-the-mill tutor.  I showed up at the designated time, tutored and went home.  However, as the spring went along, I was given more responsibility and at the beginning of the summer, I was given the opportunity to manage the learning center. 

The owner of the center had another center in the town south of where I lived and he asked another girl around my age, Amy, to manage that center.  Since we both had teaching not business degrees and had practice managing children, not other adults, we began calling back and forth to ask each other how to do this or that.  Eventually, we developed a repoire and decided we'd go do something outside of work. 

We usually hung out at her house because she lived by herself and I lived at home with my parents.  She had told me about her friend, Doug, casually mentioning him in conversation.  She said he was a very nice guy, he had recently moved to Alabama for his job and that she was trying to find him a girlfriend.  I wasn't looking for a boyfriend at the time, but I was open to having one. 

The back story is that Doug and Amy went to high school together and they were both in the band.  Doug liked Amy, but she wouldn't date him.  She went to another country to teach and Doug again tried to date Amy, but again, she turned him down.  They talked almost every day while she was gone, which I assume didn't help Doug get over Amy.  Anyway, when she returned, he figured he'd give it one last shot and she said 'no'.  Maybe Amy was trying to find him a girlfriend so he'd get off her back.

One day, Amy mentioned that Doug was coming home for the 4th of July holiday and maybe I should meet him.  Unfortunately, I was going on vacation and wouldn't be in town, but I told her, if he's such a nice guy, maybe she should give him a chance.

When I returned from vacation, I happened to be at Amy's house one evening when Doug called.  I talked to him for a few minutes and although he did sound like a nice guy, I didn't really think anything of it.  Doug gave me his phone number and I went home and announced that "I have digits".  My mom then called this poor guy "Digits".  Time went on and the more I talked to Doug, the more I wanted to meet him and the more I thought about the possibility of dating him. 

He was coming back to Florida for Labor Day weekend.  This would be my chance to meet him.  The problem was that Amy was thinking that maybe she would date him and so I kind of backed off.  The weekend before he was to be in Florida, she decided that she didn't want to date him, so she planned a group hangout at a local sports bar for us to meet and play trivia. 

I looked forward to meeting Doug on Thursday, but since he lived 10 hours away, I didn't really think that it was going to work.  We went to Trivia Night and I thought that Doug was nice looking.  That night, I also found out that he was smart. Except for one question, he knew all the answers.  I though I knew the answer to the question he didn't, but I didn't want to speak up and look stupid.  It turns out that my answer was right.  When we left that night, Amy made us hug, which was incredibly awkward.

On the way home, I texted Doug to say it was nice to meet him.  I didn't figure I would really hear from him again, not because the night was bad, just because, again, the distance.  To my surprise, the next evening Doug called and asked if I wanted to go see a movie.  We went and saw a horrible movie (Tropic Thunder) and made plans to go out the next evening. 

While I was at work on Saturday, there was nothing going on, so I watched the University of Florida football game.  Doug is a graduate of UF and loves football, so I figured I would impress him with my knowledge of what happened during the game when we met up later.  We went and saw another pretty bad movie (Pineapple Express) and walked around a local park so we could talk more, since movies don't really give one an opportunity to talk and get to know someone.

Sunday we each did our own thing and originally Doug was going to go back to Alabama on Monday.  However, Hurricane Gustav went near where Doug worked, so there was no work until Wednesday, so he would be going back on Tuesday.  On Monday, we went back to the park and we sat and talked for many hours, into the middle of the night.  We decided that we would try giving the long-distance relationship a try.

It didn't take long to decide that long-distance just wasn't going to work.  About the same time, my full-time job was quickly becoming a part-time job and then no job due to the owner being in trouble with the IRS and closing down his two learning centers.  I began looking for a teaching position closer to where Doug was.  I know that moving for a guy is crazy, but I thought that maybe this guy was "the one".  I also figured that if our relationship didn't work out, I could still make a life for myself away from Florida.  I wanted to get out of Florida anyway. 

I soon found a job about 15 minutes from where Doug worked.  I packed up all of my stuff and moved to Alabama at the end of September.  It all happened so quickly, my poor mom didn't know what was going on.  She went from having her whole family living at home at the beginning of September to having just my brother at home by the end of September (my dad was away from home for his job and didn't know when he'd be back home).

Obviously our relationship worked out and the rest is history!