Beth

Beth is a senior in English and Comparitive Literature here at the University. I've been with her for a year now; she's the best match to me I have ever known. She's smart, funny, outspoken, silly, passionate, caring, nurturing, and just plain wonderful. She can, and does, put up with me. I can, and do, put up with her. She's what I was looking for in life, and I don't mind saying so in front of anyone.

First Meeting and Courtship

I always laugh when we start talking about how we met. Our first contact was over Instant Messenger; but in reality, Orkut and LiveJournal were more important technologies, and our friends were more important still. It began on January 30th. Our mutual friend Ryan had made a comment in his journal about how he had spent a lonely evening at home playing Six Degrees of Skirvin on Orkut, the newest online craze. This girl responded the next day saying "i keep seeing this guy everywhere" - online, through friends, through everything. Hell, she was friends with my roommate! So that night, after our party finished up, I IM'd her. We talked for about half an hour, determined that she wished she could have been at our party, and went to sleep with the promise that we would continue to talk the next day.

We talked the next day. We talked the day after that. We just kept *on* talking. We had one brief meeting, at Empire Chinese on campus (2/5), which went well but almost seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of our online talking... And we would have kept on this way, just talking and flirting and carrying on kinda silly, if it hadn't been for the input of the single person that could guess what was going on: Kerry.

Kerry found out about Beth after my post saying that I had met her, and that I approved. He started talking with her online too - but with the more sinister purpose of verifying that she was in fact good for me, and talking me up to her at the same time.. I didn't know that he was doing this, nor did I necessarily approve. Still, when he started writing *me* about her, I not only grew a bit jealous, but realized that I should do something more about it all - helped because he was telling me the same thing. Oh, and her. 'Twas a masterful piece of matchmaking...

Beth had had to go home that weekend to go the funeral of the father of one of her close friends. In an act of extreme risk and tackiness, I asked her out on the 6th, for a proper coffee-date on the 7th. And she agreed.

The date started at 3:30pm at Green Street Coffeehouse; we then had dinner at Bombay Indian Grill, and then stopped by her place, before I took her back to work for a few hours. Later, she took the bus out to as close to my place as possible, and I snuck out to go walk her to my place. There, while "watching" The Opposite of Sex at 1am, she told me "I hate you"; I leaned over and kissed her passionately, nervousness forgotten...

We've been together ever since.

The Relationship

When it comes down to it, I don't really know what to say about our relationship. There's just so *much* of it. We're constantly talking to each other, laughing at and with each other, picking on each other when it seems appropriate, helping each other when it isn't... We're often cute in public, but more than capable of just standing next to each other or even on the opposite sides of the room without recrimination. Our fondest goals are to make the other smile, either in indignation and shock, or in simple love.

I love that she didn't get upset when I ditched her on Valentine's Day, because I needed to be with a friend going through chemotherapy. I love that she doesn't just follow what I say. I love that her tastes are different than mine; I love it when our tastes match, too. I love showing her things and watching her grow more obsessed with them than I already am. I love that she refuses to be anything less than my equal partner; I love that she knows that I want nothing less. I love that she cares so much about her friends. I love that she likes my friends too.

I have loved the vacations we have had together - Murphysboro, Seattle, Ohio, and the Bahamas, as well as the shorter trips around the state that I've taken with her. I have loved how her family has accepted me, just as mine has accepted her. I have loved spending time with her roommates, even if she'll never believe it. I have loved seeing her be a student, and again remembering why the whole thing is fun and stressful. I have loved trying to help her through everything, from homesickness to senioritis to actual sickness. And I believe that she has loved helping me every bit as much...

I love her.

Engagement

I don't have a lot of time to write more on here right now, but let it be known that I asked Beth to marry me on 10 Oct 2005, at about 11:30pm. She said yes. We're both deleriously happy about it, though kindof scared of the upcoming reception (it's gonna be expensive!). More details will follow... and probably a separate web page.

Current Status

As of this writing, Beth and I have dated for exactly one year, with our first date on 08 Feb 2004. We're still going strong, and I don't expect this to end any time soon. I currently plan to live with her next semester, after I buy a place here in town to live in. And even that I expect to be temporary, before she goes off to graduate school in Seattle or wherever else she wants to go...

I won't say that every step is easy, because that would be foolishness. I will say that virtually every step is *worth it*. And I truly hope, and expect, that we're going to last for at least another year.