How We Met

This was the first moments we met. We went swimming in a waterhole the day before the Keel's wedding.

(From the Groom's perspective)

On June 18th of this year I was, as I had begun to think of it, "aggressively single." Which is not to say enthusiastically single. I found nothing necessarily cheerful about being alone in my mid-twenties. Rather, I bore all the symptoms of bachelorhood. To wit: I thought about the future in giant vague ideals, ate much but poorly, slept on a borrowed mattress (but mostly on a borrowed couch) and had recently quit my part time job to practice Swing dancing.

All of my friends seemed to be getting married, and with remarkably good timing--within a year of graduation, exactly when I, with apparently clumsy forethought, anticipated my own marriage long ago. Instead I was headed to upstate New York with my engaged friends, where I was groomsman for a different friend's wedding. Unexpected, but I had learned to enjoy being single, always a groomsman, never a groom. I liked delivery pizza. I still like sleeping on couches.

We did the drive in two phases, staying the night in Pennsylvania with my friend's fiance (these are the two people I was driving up with). The second phase began with a morning breakfast that must have been illegal in some states for its caloric content (note: it's not possible to make pancakes too sweet to eat. Try it.). I mention this because, as an aggressively single man, I remember this course of events in terms of what I ate. I specifically recall that our trip was cut in half by a trip to a New York rest stop, which looked like a quarter chunk of a moderately sized mall, and bought an Ang us burger that looked like a quarter chunk of a moderately sized head of steer and was covered in bacon and provolone. After making an extra trip to pick up our tuxes in a city 30 minutes past our stop, we made it to our destination well-fed and sleepy. 

That, actually, is when we met. She was one of the first people we saw, and all I remember was the sun partially obscuring her from behind some tall trees, and people chuffing around in every possible direction, looking a bit lost.

"We're going to go swim. Everyone else left like, 30 minutes ago. We've been waiting for Kirsten. It's some swimming hole she knows about. Want to come?"

I and the driver look at each other, half out of the car. Sure. Lake sounds. Nice. Do we have time to, um, change?

By the time we got to the swimming hole everyone we knew had left. But we decided to at least jump in for a second, since we had driven just long enough to make it seem ridiculous to turn back without doing anything. And that was the context of my first interaction with Georgie:

Ryan (offering hand): "You can come in. The water's fine really. Drops off a little in the middle, but it's just a little cold"

Georgie (tottering on a pile of rocks, prostrate): Um. Well.

Ryan: Maybe not?

Georgie (looks up the embankment): I think everyone's leaving.

Ryan: Scaredy-cat.

The rehearsal and dinner were that night. She wore something dark and somehow looked more grown up than everyone else. Something about the way she watched people: the way a mother watches her children with cautious eyes, though she's sure everything's fine. One of the other bride's maids accused me, rather plainly, of wearing ridiculous shoes (which I was) and Georgie was quick to bashfully rebuke her. That was the first time I saw Georgie blush. 

Weddings that I'm a part of put me in a vacation-y mood. So, the next morning I went searching for the prettiest bride's maid, the one with the hispanic eyes and the thick black hair and that cute accent no one could place (not even her). So, after dodging some lazily arranged booby-traps that the bride's maids had set up for us, I went to find...

Who is that girl again?

Georgie.

Oh right. I knew it started with a G. Georgie. That's nice. Where is she from?

She lives in Lynchburg actually.

Hmm.

My thinking was relatively simple, and I hate to disappoint the romantics out there reading this story that are looking for a climax, but really all that was going through my head was: I need to ask this girl out by the end of the day.

This was not as easy as it seemed. Though your duties are mostly trivial as a groomsman, you're constantly being shifted around for pictures with the bride's maid you're assigned (and mine was, sadly, not Georgie). During one phase of the photo shoots she asked me about my major, and said it was funny that both of us were doing English type things, studied Bible and wanted to teach. I gave out with that laugh you use to fill space before you launch into something else, something that would finally get us talking and set my plan in motion. But all that came out was something like, "Yeah. Huh. That's weird."

During the reception I was aimless, because all I wanted to do was dance. I picked up every dancer I knew that was attending, neglected my food for once (salmon that was grilled a light brown and covered in butter) and spent all my pent up energy. I looked over at Georgie and she was eating and sort of panning around the crowd of strangers. I had to get her to dance.

Dance? No way.

Yes.

I don't dance.

You will dance.

I can't dance.

C'mon. This is a really easy group dance.

Ugh.

So, she danced with me, first the Cupid Shuffle, then the Cha-Cha Slide, then the Train, all the cheesy modern wedding reception dances (minus the Macarena).

However, I still hadn't asked her out, and time was falling out of my pocket. A friend and I were leaving right after the reception to head for New Jersey, which left me a few minutes after the Send-Off to not have to ask her out over Facebook. So, I did what any completely non-creepy guy would do under those circumstances. I followed her back into the reception place and waited till no one else was around.

Hey so, I was wondering.

Yeah?

I was wondering if it would be ok if we went out on a date when we got back to Lynchburg?

::smiles::  Sure! I would like that.

One version of this story (guess whose) has me opening up my cell phone even before I asked. Either way, I typed her into my phone and had a little private celebration inside my head, and started jotting mental notes for the first date with my future wife.

And my only regret is that I may never again sleep on a couch after January 8th. But I think I'll get over it :).