Ben and I shortly after we got engaged, March 2008
Part I: Why we owe our relationship to Interview with a Vampire.
Ben and I first met a LONG time ago, in the summer of 2004. One weekend I decided go rent Interview with a Vampire at our local Movie Gallery after I'd been reading about it online. Nothing like Brad Pitt to give a single girl a hot Saturday night! Walking into the store I was greeted by a super-cute boy who, though they didn't have the movie, proceeded to compliment me, ask for my number, and drop a mind-blowingly large amount of pick-up schmooze on me. Kind of creeped out, kind of intrigued, I refused to give him my number, but still managed to find every excuse in the book to go into the movie store over that summer. But sadly, I came back from a two-week vacation to discover he had quit! For the next YEAR I thought about him and wondered what might have been if I had given him my number that day. For some strange reason I couldn't get him out of my head.
Part II: In which pizza makes a love connection. Or not.
Flash forward to the next summer, 2005. My best friend and I walked into a local pizza joint to grab some dinner and, bam! There he was, conjured out of the blue, eating dinner with his Aunt Judy. We ate dinner together that night, I gave him my number, and we hung out a couple of times. Boy did we have sizzle! We just clicked, and as Ben used to say, it was comfortable. It was so good, I couldn't eat for days, which is quite a feat, let me tell ya. Unfortunately, he was also talking to another girl at that time and ended up choosing her over me. To say the least I was hurt, angry, and sad when he stopped calling me and wouldn't answer my calls. I felt dropped, discarded, and like we were missing out on something that could have been really great.
Part III: "Let's just be friends." Yeah right.
Again, let's skip forward to the next March, March of 2006. Ben had long ago broken up with the skank very nice girl he had been dating and contacted me to hang out again. The first night he called me, we spoke on the phone for 3 hours about everything. He made it very clear he wanted to be more, but I refused, and insisted we would just be friends, that's it. And we were. We became the best of friends in fact, but that sizzle was back. I'm serious, the chemistry between us was CRAZY! For my birthday that year (our's are actually only 3 days apart, but I like to claim this one) he took me to dinner and a movie and we finally held hands. In fact, I had a huge bruise for days from where my arm was pinned between his and the arm rest. It wasn't long before we had our first kiss and it was all over. We were more than friends and everyone knew it. On October 19th of that year I finally submitted to us being a "thing" and that was it. We never looked back, we are still the very best of friends, and I never regret one moment of our courtship.
Ben and I barely a month after becoming an official item
We were thrown together by God, or fate, or whatever you want to call it, three different times at three very different parts of our lives. The first two times neither of us was ready to be in a relationship and we agree that had it happened then, it never would have worked. But instead, the third time it was perfect. In October of this year we celebrated 3 wonderful years together. Our relationship isn't always smooth sailing, but we are partners, both commited to working on what we know is a great partnership.
How about you? Was your relationship rocked by troubles at first? Were any of you "just friends?" I'd love to hear all about it!
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