Flashback Friday

 I seem to be lacking in my own original ideas for blogposts. Thankfully there are some people out there in Blogdom that are quite creative. One of those creative bloggy people is Mocha with Linda. She started this Flashback Friday thing and I thought I would join in. You can click over to her blog and participate or read other flashbacks.

When was your first date? You can choose either your first date ever or your first date with your spouse - or both! How old were you? What did you do/where did you go? Did anything memorable - either good or embarrassing? If it was your first date ever, did you continue to date that person? If so, how long? If you are sharing the story of the first date with the person you married, did you know then that he/she was "the one" or did it take a longer for love to bloom? Any other memories you wish to share about those wonderfully awkward first dates?!

I was 15 when I went on my first ever date. It was with a friend of my brother's and we went to a weird Woody Allen movie and my brother was along. It was a weird, awkward night and I didn't really end up dating the guy.

I'd rather remember my first date with my hubby. Well, kind of a date. More like the date that wasn't, or shouldn't have been. I was 21. I was dating a guy I had met in Colorado the summer before who went to school in Texas. (Long distance. Ugh.) Pete and I were very good friends by this point. We had known each other for several years through our involvement in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
Pete and I wanted to see the movie Reds. It was showing in a town about 30 miles away. We decided to go out to dinner before the movie. (I lived in the dorm, Pete lived in an apartment.) I told Pete to pick the restaurant. He picked me up at the dorm in his 1980 Mazda GLC. I cringed when we pulled into the parking lot of Long John Silvers. Now, I could eat basically any where, but that place was my absolute least favorite place. (But I didn't tell him this until a long time afterward.) I just remember looking at that plate of golden fried ickiness. I think I pick a lot of the breading off.

**A side note here. A few months ago when we were driving to see my mom, we were looking for a place to eat and actually stopped at a Long John Silvers. Mostly to be funny because we hadn't eaten at one for 27+ years. Kind of sad they are still around...  Here's a picture of my dear hubby about to enjoy the golden fried ickiness that smelled so fishy:

He's so goofy. I love him.**



Okay... back to the date that shouldn't have been...

We got to the bigger town where the movie was and pretty sure we got lost trying to find the theater. The movie was good and very long. So long there was an intermission. I remember standing in the lobby talking.  My only other real memory of that night is after we got back to our college town, we both decided that the whole go out to dinner and to a movie thing seemed too much like a date and since I was dating someone else, that we shouldn't do that any more.

I was pretty serious about that other guy and was pretty sure I'd marry him. But he broke up with me a couple of months later. (That guy ended up being a pastor and I have often thought that I just don't think I was cut out to be a pastor's wife.)

What did I do after that break up? I turned to my best friend for support. Any guesses who that best friend was? Well, he's still my best friend 28 years later. I certainly didn't know that night at Long John Silvers I'd end up spending the rest of my life with him. We started dating for real about 6 months later. We dated for 9 months, were engaged for 13 months and have been married for almost 26 years! That's a lot of life together.

I remember when I went home that summer I knew Pete was my best friend. He wrote me a letter every week that summer. Unfortunately, I don't have those letters. That fall when I headed back to school I remember looking at my letters from Pete and the letters from the guy from Texas. I was still hoping for a renewed relationship with the Texas guy, so I kept his letters and threw away all of Pete's letters. Sad. Although we still joke about the restaurant and me throwing the letters away.