How We Met

The story begins back in January 2001.

I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. Our history begins on a Saturday. That Saturday I performed in "Experimentals" (which are student directed high school plays). After all the plays were done, awards were given out and people conversed throughout the auditorium. As I was standing on the stage, talking to some friends a guy I never met came up, said "congrats", and gave me a big hug. I was a little in shock, didn't say much and really didn't think about that strange moment again.

After the performances were done, the individual plays go out to dinner. (By the time all the plays are done, you clean up, get changed, you usually are heading to a 24 hour restaurant around 10pm). We get to a local restaurant and have to wait for a bit for a table. (If I remember correctly, there were almost 20 of us.) As I was approaching the waiting area, I realized the guy sitting down was the same guy that gave me a hug on stage. So begin my bubbly, 15 year old self, I walk up to him, slap him on the leg and say, "how's it going" and blop myself down right next to him.

When our table was ready, our group headed to the far back room. They always stuck big groups as far back as they could get us. It's not like high school students are loud and annoying, right?! Ha! Okay back to the story - we got to our table, everyone was rushing around trying to find a seat. From Eric's perspective, he was trying to sit next to me but somehow we ended up at the opposite ends of the table. I just wanted to sit next to my friends, blind to what Eric was trying to do.

After about a 1/2 hour, all of our orders were taken. Let me tell you, high school students at 11pm order some strange things. I ordered a waffle with strawberries and whip cream and chicken lemon rice soup! As I was eating my soup, all of a sudden a sugar packet came flying through the air and landed directly in my bowl of soup. I was in shock! I looked around and could not find where it came from. I took it out, laid it to the side and went on eating my soup. Seconds later another sugar packet came flying across the table and again landed directly in my soup bowl. I looked up, now a little more pissed off and saw Eric waving at me and smiling. I was like, okay, creepy dude - what the hell are you doing?! I pushed my soup aside and decided not to eat it. All of a sudden, the creepy dude yelled down the table at me, "If you're not going to eat that, can I have it?!" I said sure, slid it down the table and tried to ignore him the rest of the night. As the bill came (which was always over 100 dollars and it always seemed like we never had enough money) the night was wrapping up, I was trying to figure out what the creepy dude was doing here in the first place. He was definitely not in drama. I finally found out that he was best friends with my director.

As my director was driving me home, we pulled up to a stop light and I look over and there is the creepy dude driving a girl I knew from middle school home. Thinking that they were together, I blew off the fact that I started to think the creepy dude was kind of cute!

The next night, I was on the computer (AOL at that time, IM'ing my friends - IM'ing was so popular back then) and I saw the IM name BlckNyte64 pop up as being online. One of my friends added this name to my list and I new the person's name was Eric but never thought anything more of it until that night. I stopped and thought, could this Eric be the same Eric at the restaurant last night?! I am a shy person but online was different, I was a little more bold. I clicked on his name, typed: were you at "'Round the Clock" last night for the drama dinner? He replied, "Are you that hot blond chick?" I was stunned! I said, "Yes" and from then on, we talked via IM almost every night but the interaction didn't stop there! The creepy dude, was not so creepy anymore!

At school, he would give me a flirty push, he would come by my locker to chat, he would walk me to class, etc... One day, maybe two weeks after we really started talking online, I was just finishing walking down the stairs at school, when I saw Eric approaching. I gave him a flirty little smile and he smiled back then all of a sudden he grabbed a hold of me, lifted me up and carried me all the way up the stairs. Things like this happened for the next few weeks. One night as we were talking online, Eric asked me to Prom. I agreed and was so nervous to tell my parents. I was scared about what they would think about me, a sophomore going to prom with a senior. A senior that I just meet and really barely knew but from that moment, everything started to change between us! (Don't worry in a good way)

To Be Continued..."Our First Date"