October 19th, 2011…. that’s when I made it onto Josh’ s radar. We had lunch to talk about JUC. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
I was taking my dad’s class (Biblical Interpretation… aka Herm)… and he had this cute grader. I started noticing the stud of a man grading my papers, and my dad kept mentioning that I should get together with this guy and talk to him about his semester in Israel (since I was planning on going to Israel for a year). After like 2 months, I finally gathered the courage to ask him.
We had lunch together and talked for over an hour in the cafeteria. For me, it was confirmed. Danng I had a crush on this guy. This guy Josh, whose last name I had trouble spelling.
Almost every day after class, I found reasons to hang around to talk to Josh. (I did this before we had lunch, in order to try to get to know him instead of asking him to hang out “out of the blue”… figured it would boost my chances.)
I went to the North/South football game (a CIU tradition), because I knew Josh was the captain of the North team. I cheered for him (but not out loud…), and he talked to me after the game.
He gave me his number a few weeks before this (I had a question about a Herm assignment), and came up with a LAME excuse to call him. We ended up meeting and talking for like an hour (not really about Herm at all). That began the constant Facebook messages. A few days later, he asked me to go to the winter formal. (I was stoked out of my mind, but trying really hard not to think “maybe he likes me!”)
Fast forward to the night of Waffle House, I was asked on a date (I thought? But I wasn’t sure!) while I was in a serious state of sleepiness. Basically, I was asked to run errands, and use up some groupons. I remember going to my room and telling my roommate Kim “I think Josh just asked me on a date… but he wants to run errands…”
It was a date.
It was the best date.
And I have a rather long recalling of the date, since I wrote it down right after the fact.
He came to my house at 10, and did Herm stuff with my dad. Meanwhile, my mom and I went to Wal-mart. Josh helped unload the van, and helped put stuff away. We had lunch with my family—and it was crazy how well he fit in, how comfortable I felt, how comfortable he seemed… it was awesome. At about 2, we went to the library downtown for him to return some books and pick up some stuff he had on hold. Then we went to Starbucks, because all the holiday drinks were buy one, get one free. [HE DOESN’T LIKE COFFEE… HE DOESN’T EVEN LIKE HOT DRINKS.] When I asked him about it, he said “No, I don’t like it… but you do…” (Insert heart flutter, but I told myself “we’re just friends!!!”)
We took our drinks to Riverfront park, and explored. We explored, went down by the water several times, stopped and read signs (making fun of most of them) and talked the whole time (we walked for like an hour and ½ just talking… both laughing and joking around, as well as being serious and sharing stories). He offered me his hand while we were walking down to the river, because I had coffee and I was afraid of falling (I didn’t take it because I was super self conscious about holding his hand). At one point, while we were standing on a rock in the river, he said “what would it do to our friendship if I threw you in right now???” and I said “not good things… I recommend you make another choice.”
Then we went to a used bookstore on Two Notch. We looked around for a while, and he bought me a book of Flannery O’Connor stories (entitled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and other stories. Ironic, no?).
We went to dinner (at the Kingsmans), and in his prayer he thanked the Lord for me, and our friendship (Internal dialogue: “Deborah, we are JUST FRIENDS. He just made that VERY clear in his PRAYER!!!”). We swapped stories about Capernwray and JUC.
On the ride home, he said “Ok… I don’t really know how to do this, because I’ve never done this before… but I guess we’re supposed to have a DTR or something… I hear that’s how it’s done.” He said “I like you, and I’ve really enjoy talking to you.” He proceeded to explain how he’s seen his friends date, and he always pictured himself “courting” someone, but never really knew what that meant. He told me that he likes me, and wants to spend one-on-one time with me, but doesn’t want us to become isolated and detached from our friends. “If we spend too much time together, and it doesn’t work out… that would stink. On the other hand, if it DOES work out, we have the rest of our lives to spend time together.” He expressed the dilemma that he didn’t know whether to tell me before or after talking to my dad, and that his mom told him that “if he ever started liking a girl, she better know.” I told him that I liked him too. I said “Well… you like me, and I like you too. But I’m not in a hurry. I want to do this right, and I’m not concerned about putting a label on it right away just so we can say we’re dating.” I told him that we need to take it slow, and that he needs to go home for break, and talk to his mom and we’ll figure it out. He said that on Wednesday night when he asked me to hang out on Saturday, he talked to a friend and said “I think that I just asked Deborah on a date… but I’m not sure.” And I said THAT’S SO FUNNY because I went to my room and said “Kim, I think Josh just asked me on a date… but I can’t assume that!”
We hung out before he went home for Thanksgiving break, and the night he came back we had an extended DTR. Basically, we were official. (And I was floating on a cloud.) The next day, he talked to my dad… and the rest is history.
But if you want to read more about our first date, you can here.
deborahlovesjosh.wordpress.com 