How I met my girl

I'm a writer, by nature, and when I'm asked a question - watch out. I don't just go with a short answer.

A at Accordians and Lace recently sent me five interview questions (after I requested them). But rather than respond to them all in one post, I've decided to do different posts for each question, so I can respond more deeply. If anyone wants interview questions for their blog, let me know, and I'll give you some!

So... question 1) How did you meet your partner, and how did you know you were goingto marry her?

And because calling her "bride-to-be" or "my girl" is getting clunky, I'll call her C. The funny thing is that our celebrant just asked us to write answers to these questions (separately) so she can incorporate the stories in our ceremony. C - if you happen to be reading this post... you should look away now! (She's not meant to be reading my answers).

We’ve had a bit of a whirlwind romance, but to me "whirlwind" implies spontaneous and not thinking through the reality and magnitude of this. In reality, we've thought and discussed every part of our day.

We met online. I was online just to meet a few women, and C sent me a “smile”. Normally if someone sent me a smile, I replied with another smile, inviting them to email me. For some reason though, I looked at C’s profile and just HAD to contact her. So I quickly emailed her and sat at the computer, hoping she would reply. She did, and there hasn’t been a day since that we haven’t spoken – at least on email.

We talked for about ten days, and I was heading to Hong Kong. I kept saying I wanted to meet her, and she said she was “busy” and “shy”, but I’m quite persistent. Finally, 3 days before I went to Hong Kong we met for a coffee. I went to her sister’s engagement party the next night unsure as to whether I was her “date” or just a friend. And after the party, she sent me a text message to tell me she enjoyed my company, and we texted back and forth. I was so happy …

On our first “date” (coffee) she barely looked at me! I figured she wasn’t interested in anything more than friendship, but it turns out she was just shy. I knew I’d liked her from her emails – we clicked. She was a thinker, and that showed through her emails, and that was what had attracted me to her in the first place. So nervously I walked through to the backyard and found C with a bundle of friends. She was holding court with her friends, which surprised me, as she’d been so shy. But I sat down next to her and she organised everything – she’d gotten a chef friend who worked in a vegetarian restaurant to organise me a meal. She waited on me with drinks, and she just seemed nice and everyone seemed to like her. But I wasn’t sure how silly she was, how much she let loose… I’m a little silly and I guess I felt like I need a little bit of silliness in my partner. But we had a great night, and then she walked over to get a drink and danced her way back, laughing at herself. I was instantly attracted to her when she did that – I do enjoy someone who can laugh at themselves and not take life too seriously.

There was a moment, fairly early on, where I was lying on the grass in (our wedding location) looking up at the sky with her. And I thought to myself “I am utterly, hopelessly in love and it scares the crap out of me because I’ve never felt this way before and I don’t want to be so vulnerable to a person”. But I didn’t tell her, because it was so early on, and because she’d dated other women and maybe it was normal to feel this way when you’re with the right gender. But I knew then that when we were ready to celebrate our love publicly, I wanted to do it right there - at the beach. And there were lots of tears in the early days…. I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of feelings I was having, I didn’t understand. If this was something everyone felt for their partners, how on earth does the world function?! How did people go to work each day and concentrate if they felt this way? I would listen to a love song and cry happy tears. It was truly biazaare.

As for how we decided to marry.... there's more on that... for another day!