I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned how Turtle and I originally got together, but this video reminded me of the whole thing:
Back when we were still just coworkers, we spent several weeks playing Scrabulous and sort of flirting over the little chat box they had there. I got her to join Facebook (because I wanted to get to know her, sort of – I needed an in! But I told her it was so we could play Scrabulous. Word games are a good way to snag a spouse?) and then I spent a lot of time looking at this picture and feeling fluttery.
Finally, one Friday night when I was supposed to watch a movie with my mom, she sent me a message; I’d just scored really high on some word and she said, “I’d be mad if I weren’t so smitten.”
Swoon.
From there, it all just sort of started: I saw her two days later, we had a seven hour date, and I didn’t kiss her goodnight. Don’t worry, I made up for it the next day. I spent the first month of our relationship not really talking; I was afraid we would run out of things to say to each other and that our relationship would be doomed: maybe we had nothing in common, maybe she was secretly a crazy cat lady, maybe our age difference would be a big deal or my friends wouldn’t like her.
Well, here’s what I have to say to that, Bird-of-the-Past: thanks for giving it a chance and finally opening your mouth. And Turtle-of-the-Past? Thanks for speaking up, for waiting for me to finally find a voice and words and trusting the whole crazy thing.
the first picture of us as a couple, about a month after we started dating
When we first started dating, Turtle would not let me take care of her at all. She got a cold and banned me from her apartment. To someone who needs company and someone to make me tea and bring me tissues, this was a completely ridiculous response to getting sick. When you are sick, you need someone to take care of you, and you let your girlfriend do that. Turtle’s response to that: Oh HELLS no. Leave me alone. Seriously, I think she wouldn’t even let me bring her a blanket.
Last week, as she was lying on the couch crying about how we were torturing our dog, she asked me for a box of tissues.
Look how far we’ve come, you guys. So tell that someone you’re smitten with that you’re smitten, because smitten is a good word and it makes people fluttery and then they’ll wear makeup and those cute jeans the next time they see you and then you’ll have an awesome wedding and a cute-if-high-maintenance menagerie. If that’s how you want it.
Who spoke up first in your relationship?
Roughing It 
Such a cute story! I will have to write a blog post about how we first met… it is too long a story to go into detail here. Suffice it to say, I tend to tell people I “picked her up in a bowling alley”! Watch for my story to get posted later tonight – I don’t have time right now! 🙂
Awww, my parents met in a bowling alley too. It seems to be a hot place!
Aww looking forward to reading it!
Have been too busy to get it done. Stay tuned…
That’s a great story. Scrabulous, ah, how I miss it. But I don’t have as much emotional attachment to it 🙂
I miss it too! Thanks for reading 🙂
I really can’t get enough of these “how it came to be” stories. They are always, always interesting.
Four weeks after we became an item I left the country; he bought a plane ticket to come see me in France. I think that was our equivalent of speaking up . My first thought was “woah, crazy person, yikes!” my second was “I love him.”
And “smitten” is SUCH a great word. Innocent yet sexy at the same time.
I KNOW! Especially after you get to know someone a little, it’s even more interesting to hear their “how we got together” stories. Haha, I think it’s pretty common to have the “whoa” and then “love” train of thought…
Oh our story about how we got together involves Facebook! I looked him up and saw one of his interests was sushi. So I got on aim (yes back in the day when ppl still used aim) and told him I had a craving for sushi. He said, “Really, I love sushi!” And I pretended I had no idea. He asked me out for lunch the next day. (Unfortunately that was not our first date because I had to work. But the first date came a few days later.)
Sneaky! I’m sure I did this… I saw she liked Natalie McMaster and I was all, “I play the violin and will totally learn this fiddle music.” Uh, for someone who trained in classical violin over ten years ago, I could NOT just whip up some Natalie McMaster. But it was a good effort, though one that she probably saw right through.
You two have such a wonderful connection. I love reading stories like these. They make me all warm and fuzzy inside. (On a windy day like today, I need that!) Yay for Bird and Turtle!
My practically husband asked me out first. Just out of the blue. We worked together as well but I maybe had said three words to him. Then one day he gave me his number, said if I was bored I should call him. I said okay, put the paper in my pocket, and forgot about it, never intending to follow up. But he called me a few days later – still not sure how he got my number – and for some reason I still don’t know I agreed to meet him for coffee that same night.
Not very romantic is it? I like your story much better.
Oh the story…we had been good friends for a year when I sat her down and told her: “Hey (let’s call her) Milkshake, I don’t have a crush on you:: awkward pause:: but I like girls.” I found out later that she was pretty disappointed! A year after that, the night of the last day of classes our senior year of college, we stayed up talking until 4:30 AM. We were asking each other leading flirtatious questions, kind of dancing around the obvious. Finally, I dropped this gem, “So I might hurt myself for saying this, but I have a crush on you.” And the rest is history and hilarious and wonderful!
Aww Benny that’s really sweet and sad (the disappointment), haha. So cute!
Aww that’s still really sweet! The working together always makes things interesting… like, how to do you behave afterwards? We tried to keep it a secret, but that lasted… um, I don’t think it lasted at all. We were professional towards each other but I can’t imagine that no one noticed the goosebumps I got every time she walked by my desk.
This made me remember how fluttery I felt when Laur and I first started seeing each other. You two are too adorable.
Laur and I met in a statistics class in college. I was with someone else at the time, but it was really casual. Laur and I started spending a lot of time together and one night a couple weeks later, after I had had a little liquid courage, I mustered up the courage to kiss her. It was actually kind of dramatic. I marched across a room and just went for it. There had been all of this tension for weeks, with me being semi-unavailable and Laur being so shy. It was sexy and clumsy and funny and fluttery and wonderful.
I did fine in the stats class, laur on the other hand…we’ll just say that she spent more time flirting with me and less time on the content. She took that class again over the summer and we have been clumsily kissing for over 5 years now.
Aww this is such a sweet story! Thanks for sharing! Reading it made me a little fluttery 🙂
OK – I promised to get this done, and have finally gotten around to it. Here is our story about “how we met”:
Chrystal