When I met my husband I was eighteen years old, a freshmen in college. I was dating another boy at the time, who was just the right amount of wrong for me. I talked to him on the internet and we became friends. I tried to set him up with a friend of mine who he'd expressed interest in, but she had another guy who was already "courting" her, so the whole thing ended up being really awkward. The day after we all first hung out I walked to class with my friend and spent the entire journey chewing into her about what an asshole the "other guy" was for behaving so territorially. She felt bad. For some reason, it didn't strike me as strange that I was so protective.
Eventually things with my boyfriend kind of went south. One night I was feeling especially neglected and stayed up late talking to my future husband (though unbeknownst to me) about it online. He invited me to go out and grab a coffee/drink in the hopes of making me feel better, but I declined. I was already in my pajamas and it was late. So, in my naive wisdom, I suggested that he come pick me up and take me back to his place instead, which was a whole city away from my dorm room and I didn't even tell a single soul where I was going. I got in his car -- wearing satin pajama pants and a spaghetti strap tank top, no bra -- and we drove to his place. How I didn't end up on an episode of Forensic Files just goes to show you what a stand-up guy this man was.
He was very charming and flirty by nature. So flirty, in fact, that when I eventually ended up breaking up with my boyfriend and venturing forward in life as a single college girl, I didn't pick up on the signals that he had a thing for me. Over the summer he would call me on his way to work every morning and leave me a voicemail (back when I turned my phone off at night, lol). At some point in the day I would listen to a fourteen-minute long message from him describing everything he was seeing on his drive in to work and whatever else was on his mind. He was very sweet. But I was too oblivious to realize that he actually liked me.
It wasn't until I started showing interest in another boy that he finally came right out and told me. I mean, as blatant as a man could possibly be. By that point, the effort he'd put into me must've felt exhausting, and he understandably wasn't about to let it all go to waste by watching me hook up with yet another man. So he confessed his feelings for me and there I was, eighteen years old, just pleasantly shocked by this development.
So we went on our first date (which was magical) and for me there was no turning back. Within a month I loved him and felt convinced he was "the one." Everyone thought I was crazy -- and probably I was -- but I wasn't wrong. I looked at him, saw a magnificent thing, and just never looked away again. Suddenly there was no other man in the world, and as I'm typing this (eighteen years later), I can say undoubtedly that that hasn't changed.
I told him he was the Eighth World Wonder.