So, this starts out like all good embarrassing moments. I was on a “date”. I had gotten sports tickets from work several times over the past few months and my roommate finally threatened to kill me if I didn’t at least try to ask some guy out with them instead of taking her along. So I had stared at the phone for 30 minutes, pulled out the phone list from our singles group, and called him up.
He was a friend of a friend in our church singles group – we had hung out a few times in large groups, I had ridden in his car once, and I had listened to him tell his “life story” over dinner with the singles group. So we didn’t know each other that well, but well enough to feel comfortable with each other. Most of my friends would say he was “nice” if you asked them to describe him, and he had mentioned in a conversation previously that he’d never been to the AA Center, so I figured even if he didn’t want to hang out with me, Mavs tickets would be enough of a draw.
The date was going well – he was savvy enough to think to offer to drive and buy us dinner beforehand, and we had talked pretty much the entire time without uncomfortable silences. I didn’t date much, ok, actually ever, so I was trying REALLY hard not to be a dork. Those of you who know me fairly well know that I tend to be a bit of a nerdish klutz, so trying to be “cool” for a date was a lot of work.
Once we got to the game, we both admitted that neither one of us liked basketball. We had great seats but really didn’t know what was going on. But we both agreed that the little glow sticks on a string that they handed us when we walked in were really cool.
As the announcer started revving up the crowd, they turned out the lights, and we all broke out our glow sticks. As we are yelling and swinging them over our heads by the strings, I leaned over to comment how cool it looked. And lost my grip on my glow stick, which then flew out of my hands, David and Goliath style, down about three rows and hit a large man in the back of the head. If I could have climbed underneath those tiny American Airlines Center seats, I would have. I was mortified!
My date, however, did something I wasn’t expecting. Instead of just laughing at me (which he was, because I was, too), he walked down to the man, apologized for hitting him, and asked for my glow stick back. Because he knew I liked it.
Ok, my carefully planned “Operation Jenny Is Actually Cool, Not a Dork” wasn’t going to work. My true self was going to come out wether I wanted it to or not. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
And it wasn’t. That was 8 years ago in December. Seven years ago today, I married that nice guy, who thinks my dorkiness is cute, likes that I’m a bit of a nerd, and loves that I’m not a girly girl. Asking Andy out to a game that neither one of us liked was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Thank you, hubs, for the best 7 years of my life. You are the most amazing man of God, and I’m reminded daily of how blessed I am to have you as my husband and father of my children. I can’t wait to see what God has planned for us in the years to come! I love you and am so thankful for you!