We met online. I had gotten out of a crazy relationship with a girl and was looking for someone stable. I went on Yahoo Personals and made myself a profile. I wasn't really finding anyone worthwhile so I figured when the 7 day free trial ran out, that would be it for me I guess. But I ended up getting a message from someone. I was intrigued. I clicked on it and saw Melinda's photo. She look cute, but I wasn't quite sure of how she looked since you could only really make out her head. So I decided I would reply but my days had run out. I wasn't so lucky to find her in 7 days. I paid the one month fee of whatever it was to talk to this girl. This girl who would become my fiancé eventually. I figured I would talk to her. Now in her profile she said she was NOT looking for a boyfriend or a relationship. So we just started out with the normal emails, asking questions about each other, figuring out who likes what, etc. These emails mind were massive. They were very long in nature. After a while, Melinda says you just want my number? I figured she was done with the typing. So we starting talking on the phone. Again, long conversations that would last hours and hours. The crowning moment was this: I was down in South Florida to get laser surgery. While I was down there, I didn't bring my wall charger with me, only my car charger. So my phone was dying and I wanted to keep talking to her, so I jumped in my car and put the car charger and drove around Ft. Lauderdale as I talked to her. This lasted about an hour. Then I asked her out. I said how about I cook you dinner at my place on Friday? She said okay. No questions asked...at that time. I didn't figure there was a problem with that but as a girl, going to a guy's house who you just met online, there could be some problems. Her family protested at first saying she was crazy. They did checks into my background and scouted my house in Gainesville to make sure it wasn't a warehouse or something. So I had to decide what to wear and cook. After some advice from Ross (my best man), I got the place cleaned up, cooked some ribeye steaks, and tried to look my best. She came over and was looking very pretty for a girl who wanted to just be friends. We had dinner and it was fantastic. She had asked what to bring, so she made dessert. Even though it was all a surprise, I ate her dessert even though it wasn't my favorite. After dinner, we were talking and I felt like we couldn't just stay there. I asked her if she wanted to go to a coffee shop. I thought it was a good place to take the date next. She asked if I drank coffee, and I told her no, but I didn't want the night to end. And that's when I knew I wanted to date her. |
The proposal I knew had to be special. So I had this idea initially to write in the sand, Marry Me, in candles. We were going to South Florida and going to go to Seawatch which is our favorite restaurant. But I knew I wouldn't have the chance to set this up beforehand without her suspecting. It's a good thing that I didn't because they have ruined Seawatch. It's so mainstream and commercialized now. It was special before, but now it's horrible. So I decided to wait. I rushed home from work one Friday. I didn't have much time to set this up but she let me know that she was going to be about 30 minutes away. I said okay. That was at 530pm. I setup at 545pm. We were supposed to have date night regardless but she was taking a long time to get home. So I called her up and she was delayed. The candles were starting to go out. I had to swap them out with other ones. She finally showed up and I had the lights off except for the candle light of my proposal. She said, ooo, this is nice. She thought I was just being romantic but when she saw the candles in their arrangement spelling out, Marry Me, she asked if it was really happening. I got down on one knee and said, Melinda, will you marry me? She got down on her knees with me and hugged and kissed me and said yes. I got the ring and put it on her finger. We hugged and kissed again, and I rushed off to get a picture of the arrangement before they extinguished.
|
