Hooking up with Alene

Well, since Alene started it, I thought I'd write my version of hooking up.

It was sometime in early August. I was living the single father life (i.e. work and time with Caiden), but my brother Jeff was living with me and having him around definitely spiced things up for my life. He was very out-going and had a lot of friends of which he'd bring over a variety of people from time to time who I'd casually get to meet.

I had been single for the better part of a year and had not had much luck with the whole dating scene. During the Fall I coached football and was very busy with that. All of my time and efforts went into it and it was hard to find time to be "social". I had started attending the Student ward at church with Jeff, which secretly the sole purpose for attending them is to find someone to date. I didn't have much luck because #1: I get really shy/nervous around random groups of people I don't know. #2: I'm much better at one-on-one converstion than group conversation because I don't like talking too much about myself.

Anyway, so football season was just starting and Jeff had told me that his friend Rob and another girl were going to come over to watch the movie Hildago. Jeff has had many friends over to watch movies and I'd join them sometimes, sometimes I wouldn't (just surf the net or go to bed). Well on this particular night this "girl" was really good looking, had the most stunning (heart warming) smile I'd ever seen, and had a pretty kick-butt-rockin' body to boot! :) I don't remember much about the movie, but mostly trying to grab glimpses of her when she wasn't looking. I remember during the movie she would make remarks (maybe responding to mine) and as she said them, she'd turn toward me and smile as she said them. It made my heart beat fast. I had to get to know her somehow.

Anyway, she left that night and immediately I asked Jeff is she was dating Rob. He said kind of, but wasn't sure and I asked him to check with Rob if it was cool that I called her. By the next morning he heard back from Rob and Rob said it was cool and that he was an economist and believed in the open market, or something like that. It was funny.

Anyway, being how badly I wanted to call her, I had to consider my history of calling people I barely or never knew. Over the course of my single-hood, I had been give numbers of girls for me to call by my friends or family. Girls they all knew that I did not and I was encouraged to call them. One of them became an actual date that went OK, but I never heard back from the girl (even after trying to call her, which was obvious she wasn't interested). The other two were distasters almost on the level of Mikey from the movie Swingers, it was bad, but not THAT bad. Either way, I think my conversation ended up giving too much info and neither of the girls called me back. It sucked. ANYWHOOO! So it took EVERYTHING inside of me to call her. I feared rejection soooo badly, but I did it anyway. Good thing Alene was open to dating.

The phone call was swift, sweet and simple. I asked her if she wanted to go out sometime. When she said sure, my heart almost popped out of my chest. I could not believe I wasn't being rejected, plus she was beautiful, so BONUS!

Anyway, our first date didn't start off too well as I had stepped in some dog poop before picking her up and I noticed it once I was in the car. Somehow I wasn't embarassed about it as I could tell she thought it was funny and she wasn't judging me. I felt comfortable with her the first date. I don't remember what we did (I think dinner and maybe a movie???) but we ended up back at my house and just talked. She ended up telling me pretty personal things about herself, which threw me off-guard, but made me feel special that she would trust them to me. I ended up inviting her to a BYU FB game (I had two season tix) and we ended the date that night with a hug or something.

We had some small e-mail contact and then went to the game. All seemed to go well, but after the game, contact with her was off and on. Mostly e-mail. Tim called me and told me that Ry Ry was interested in her, I said I wasn't with her so if he wanted to call her I guess he could.

I just remember telling her over and over that I wasn't looking to just mack and that she could chill around me, but it was mostly because I was trying SO HARD to not be like Mikey from Swingers. I didn't want to scare her away, even though I was VERY interested in her.

Eventually she didn't call or write me much. I got wrapped up in coaching and she got wrapped up in her MBA stuff and dating other dudes I guess. I think the nail in the coffin at the time was Tim calling me and asking me how the date went, then telling me he saw her with her ex-boyfriend at Roman Gardens. I figured she was going back with the ex and I pretty much got rid of any hope of seeing what could happen. I tried to justify things about why it was better that way, but I still could not get her out of my head. Eventually I kind of did.

Then, I got an e-mail from her. It was very sweet and I was curious why after 6 weeks or so, that she would be contacting me again? I wasn't upset, just I felt rejected the first time, but I thought she was such a gem, that I could not let this opportunity pass. I think it was a day or two later I had gotten home from working a re-model job REALLY late and I found this on my porch. I felt special. We went out a couple more times and kept in e-mail contact. Then I guess Tim called and talked to her for a bit about me and then he called me quickly and says "Dude, she's REALLY into you". I was shocked, but felt better about how it was going.

Anyway, from there on out we spent almost every day together. I could not wait to see her every day. She was so positive, energetic, exciting, interesting, and smart. I loved being with her (and I still do, despite what she might think sometimes).

As I looked back on my blog from when I started dating her, this is the first thing I said about loving her: "I'm so in love. I really am. Its pathetic I know, but wonderfully pathetic. Alene has been so great to me. You know how people talk about the 'complete package' when it comes to a relationship? One of those 'ideal' parts of a relationship where someone is attractive, smart, energetic, positive, STABLE, consistent, honest, etc? Well, she is all that and a bag of chips."

This is still true. I just need to be better about telling her how I feel.

I love you baby.