In Jan, my friend Alisa came to visit. I took her to an FHE activity since she's not mormon, to give her the "mormon experience" AND so she could "meet" Jeremy. The guy that I wouldn't stop talking about. FHE that week happened to be the NCAA Football Championship between Alabama and Clemson.
Now, I have some friends who went to Alabama and are also from Alabama, so I was cheering for Alabama while the rest of the ward was cheering for Clemson, the underdog. Jeremy pretty much ignored me that entire night because of that decision. He barley said 2 words to me all night long. I'm pretty sure all I got was a "hi" and "bye"and quite a few dirty looks.
We did send some texts to each other... but this was the extent of it.
I walked out of that FHE and I turned to my friend Alisa (who was in town just visiting in between job transitions) and I was just like "He totally gave me the cold shoulder... he's not interested right?"
She agreed with me, that yes, in fact, he was ignoring me and he probably wasn't interested. In that moment I was like "PSH! I'm done with him! It's not worth it to me anymore..." I did my typical huffy puffy girl thing, and left him alone. I totally gave him a bit of the cold shoulder and only chatted with him here and there.
Fast forward to February.
I had just come home from traveling a few weeks. I had had a rough week, which included breaking off things, or as I like to say, clarifying our non existent relationship, with a guy who within 24 hours of talking with me told me he loved me, he wanted to marry me and for me to have his kids.... Man. Sometimes the crazy train is just... crazy and too crazy to not stare at. Anyways. On Feb 21st, Jeremy texted me... our conversation went like this
So after I ended things, I met up with Jeremy at the park. We sat on the swings and started swinging. Now, unbeknownst to me, Jeremy was starting to have feelings for me. He knew he liked me and decided that he was going to read how the situation went that night, and then tell me that he liked me.
Just as he felt things were going well, and he got up the courage to tell me he liked me, I stopped telling my story and said "Wait. Hold on. We're JUST friends right? There's no feelings here, there's no emotion, no nothing right? We're JUST friends right?"
Because the poor guy has already been friend zoned by me once, and I was so adamant about just being friends, (I had personally kinda developed a very small crush on him, but since he ignored me at the football game, I thought he didn't like me) he wasn't about to tell me no. So he said "Uh, yeah. Just friends. Yup." When he really wanted to tell me he liked me... unfortunately, I didn't give him the chance.
The upside to this situation is that because we were just friends, it allowed me to open up to him. To talk to him about somethings that were going on that I wouldn't have shared with a guy that I liked, or was trying to impress.
Jeremy was smart and decided to capitalize on the "friend zone" I had put him in. About a week later, I had a rough day and just needed a friend to talk to. I texted Jeremy and asked if he was busy. He responded and said that he was free and asked what was up. I simply said I had a rough day. He said he'd be over in 10 min.
Sure enough, 10 min later, he arrived. We sat on my couch at first, but with roommates coming in and out, I never really got to talk... so I asked him if he wanted to go out and swing in the hammock. He said sure and out we went. We just laid in the hammock and talked. About 15 min later, Jeremy looked at me and said very straight faced, "Look, I'm going to put my arm around you. This means nothing. We are JUST friends. But this is really uncomfortable..." and he put his arm around me.
I very quickly found my spot on his chest and cuddled right in.
I don't know what exactly happened, but I realized I liked him. And not just a crush... but really liked him.
Our conversations kept getting better, deeper, longer, and we started hanging out together more often. He'd invite me to come over for game nights. He'd invite me to celebrate his sibling's birthday, and we started finding reasons to hang out. He even asked me to come watch Survivor with his family (a show I hardly watched.) One night during game night, Jeremy was scrolling through Facebook and saw this post
He turned to me, showed this to me, and said "Yup! I'm not wasting time." and went back to playing his game. It caught me off guard. It made me nervous.
Yes I liked him. I knew I liked him. But, uhh, marriage!? That's... well... not what I was thinking!
Fast forward to March
For my birthday, my best friend bought me a three-day park hopper pass to Disneyland, and we finalllyyyyyy found a weekend for us to go! Before I left, I was shooting 2 shows and was insanely busy, but Jeremy wanting to be a good guy, came and hung out with me in between shows, packing, editing, doing laundry and cleaning. Just before I left to head out to my show, he gave me a hug and told me to have fun.
The next day the girls and I headed out on a girls vacation. We were SO excited to just enjoy our trip. However, my mind was still on Jeremy.
The ENTIRE time we were gone, I was texting Jeremy. We would wait in lines and Jeremy and I would be texting. We would get on the ride, get off, and I would continue to text him. Bethany at one point asked who I was texting, to which I responded with "Oh, Jeremy..." she followed up with "Is that who you've been texting this ENTIRE time?" Sheepishly I said "yeahhhh...."
Our conversations went late into the night, and they were throughly entertaining. We had a way of talking and flirting with each other, that if it got too "scary" for the other, we could spin it off as joking. It was our defense mechanism as he and I rarely knew where we stood with the other person.
On our second to last night, Jeremy and I had the following exchange.
I KNEWWWWWWW this text was a game changer. I turned over to Bethany and Kelly in the bed next to me and said "uh. Guys... I'm in trouble. When we get home tomorrow, I'm gonna go figure out where things are at with Jeremy..." I relayed these messages to them, and we giggled like school girls. I'd just like to point out, that I also never started this... he did. clearly.
When I got back, Jeremy came over for dinner the next night (4/1/16) and I grilled us some dinner. We started chatting, we ate, and we just had an enjoyable night. Per tradition, we opted to go hang out in the hammock together.
We climbed in, he put his arm around me, and I once again, found my spot on his chest. We started talking, sharing experiences, I told him Disneyland stories... and then I got reallllyyyyy quiet. Over time, Jeremy has gotten to the point where he can read me. He knew that I had something on my mind and started prodding. This was that conversation.
Jeremy: Hey, whats up? You're quiet...
Me: I'm just wondering if I should bring up a certain topic or not...
Jeremy: The topic of... US!?
(Keep in mind that Jeremy has been friend zoned officially twice and unofficially one other, so he was going to tread VERY carefully and make me do ALL the work...)
Me: Yeah...
Jeremy: What about us?
Me: Well, I was thinking about whether or not we should, uhh, maybe, kinda, like maybe, possibly... date!?
Jeremy: Huh. I've been thinking about that too. What are your thoughts?
At this point I was DYING. I was hoping he'd start telling me how he felt the same and not make me do ALL the work. Instead, he made me spell it OUT for him.
Me: Wellllllll... I wouldn't be opposed.
Jeremy: Well, I wouldn't be opposed either.
We then chatted for the next 45 min trying to figure out what everything meant. What our relationship was going to look like, how we were going to handle things, how we were going to, as we loving described it "put up with each other"... logistics. We finally came to the conclusion that we would start dating. That we would be boyfriend and girlfriend.
In all honesty, I struggled calling him my boyfriend. I hadn't been in a relationship in a really long time, and having a boyfriend felt weird, but I knew I liked Jeremy and wanted to be with him. I wanted to see where this went. If it could go somewhere.
I had seen Jeremy's heart. I saw how he loved. I saw how he cared. I saw how he was with his family and I just... I knew that he was special and that I would be REALLY lucky to date him and potentially... maybe more!
To be continued in part 3!
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