Love Stories

See that picture? I know you're thinking, "Why are you posting a picture of a bunch of guys after a softball game?" Well, this here picture was taken a few hours before my husband and I went on our first date.

Little ol' Evan had no idea how charming and amazing I was.

Why don't boys smile in pictures?

And little ol' Whitney didn't know how much fun she could have playing miniature golf.

Truth be told, we could have done anything that night and I would've had fun.

I had met Evan about a week before our first date at a bonfire in Provo Canyon (South Fork Park to be exact). I had met most of my friend's brother's roommates, but I hadn't met Evan. I remember watching him kick a soccer ball in the air with one of his friends and thinking, "Pretty cute. I wonder how I can get him to notice me?"

Now, I wasn't the type of girl that would go out of her way to get a guy to notice her. Of course, I was known to wear a flattering outfit if the guy I had a crush on was going to be somewhere I was going to be. I even owned an "eat your heart out" dress that I wore to church knowing the guy that broke up with me a few days earlier was going to be there. Ok, so maybe I did go out of my way to get a cute guy to notice me every once in a while.

After a few minutes of chit chat, everyone agreed that we should play a game of ultimate frisbee while we waited for the sun to set. I'm not really that great at ultimate frisbee, but I figured if Evan was playing I might 1) impress him with my willingness to play even if I wasn't that good or 2) do a little friendly trash talking in his general direction in an attempt to be noticed.

Points were scored, passes caught or intercepted. I don't really remember much about the game itself. All I remember thinking is, "I'm going to steal his hat and wear it." I had officially reverted to a second grade girl with a crush.

But it worked. I ran by him and grabbed his hat and slid it onto my head with a little grin. A pretty bold move, even for a girl who has an "eat your heart out" dress. Without consciously thinking about the ramifications of my flirting, Evan's reaction to my school girl ways showed me a few things:
He may have a sense of humor since he didn't get upset by what I did. 
He may even think I'm cute because he let me wear the hat.
And he doesn't care if he has hat hair. 

A few minutes later I ran over and said, "Here's your hat," handed it to him, and ran off. Yep, still in second grade girl mode.

Most of his friends left a few hours later, but he and one of his friends stayed. I knew right then that he must be interested in someone. Why else would a guy stick around after the majority of his friends had left? I hoped it was me, but he didn't really try to talk to me a lot so I figured it was someone else. And he was probably a little confused when, in keeping with my second grade girl theme, one of my guy friends pretended to be my boyfriend after I got wind that an unwanted suitor would be at the bonfire. (Evan gets a good laugh out of that part of our story. I, on the other hand, always "forget" to mention it.)

The night ended and we went our separate ways. I saw Evan the next day at a fish funeral. I wore my "eat your heart out" dress.

to be continued...