Our Love Story

BYU Preference March 2000

In honor of Valentine's day I've decided to share "our story". It all started one fall semester 12 years ago at BYU. I was a sophomore and The Doctor was a fresh returned missionary. For some crazy reason I was a declared Biology major which meant I was taking 2 Chemistry and a physics class in one fun semester. I'm sure any of these classes on their own would be fine but when your first priority was a social life it made studying and learning quite hard. The Doctor was a pre med major so naturally we had to take some of the same classes.

I sat nervously in the middle of the lecture hall of my first chem class on the first day of school and in walked this tall, handsome, lean machine. And I mean tall...6'7" tall. Compared to my 5'4" he towered over me. After mentally taking note of how good looking this man was I chided myself and said "you wouldn't have a chance. Tall guys go for tall girls".

Later that day I settled into my seat in physics and low and behold the same guy walked in. Once again I told myself he was out of my league.

Wouldn't you know it, the next day I found myself passing him on some stairs, he was going down and I was going up, and he smiled and said hi. I held composure even though my insides were jumping all over the place. I was on my way to get a drink. When I made it back to the classroom who was sitting there? The Doctor. I couldn't believe it. This class was a much smaller class so I knew we would have to meet and talk. Well, as the semester progressed The Doctor and I became good friends (after all, he was out of my league). He, another guy, and I ended up having 4 classes together that semester. The 3 of us became study buddies. Because I did not feel I had a chance with him I totally let my guard down. During study sessions we would talk about people we were dating and give relationship advice back and forth. If he had a bad date I heard all about it. By mid semester I had a steady boyfriend and I went as far as setting The Doctor up on a date with my taller roommate. We doubled and went and saw some Disney cartoon I believe at the $1 movie. I didn't find out until later but it drove The Doctor crazy to see me with my boyfriend. At the time he didn't understand it either because he had told himself that I was too short to date. He had a strict 5'7" or taller rule.

Shortly after Thanksgiving my boyfriend and I had broken up. The day after we broke up The Doctor took me on my first snowmobiling adventure. It was a blast until I crashed. That is another story all together. This little adventure was the first time the thought of me and The Doctor dating popped into my head.

Christmas break came and a guy I dated in HS was getting home from his mission. The Doctor of course new all about him. As is typical for most foreign return missionaries the guy was a little weird (sorry if you are reading this but you were). I remember calling The Doctor the first night I saw this other guy. I didn't know it at the time but he was on a date with his girlfriend but he still spoke with me.

After Christmas I changed majors which  meant no more classes with The Doctor. I assumed our friendship would wither. One time in January I remember running into The Doctor in the library and asking him when he was going to ask me out. He replied "when are you going to grow taller".

In February there was a holiday weekend. HS guy drove me and another friend of his home for the weekend. We had a great drive and I thought finally the weirdness was ending. The Doctor took his girlfriend to the family cabin (with the rest of the fam of course) for a weekend of snow mobiling. When I got back in town The Doctor called me and said he had just had the worst weekend. Apparently his girlfriend stayed inside the cabin the whole weekend knitting and didn't go out and play. I told him that's what he gets for dating someone 9 years older then him. He then told me he needed to go have some fun and he was coming by to pick me up and we were going miniature golfing. We told ourselves this wasn't a date because he still had a girlfriend. We were just 2 friends going to have fun together. For the next 2 weeks we "had fun" together. We went bowling, played pool, went roller blading,....basically everything his girlfriend wouldn't do. 

March brought Preference (BYU's girls choice dance). All of my roommates were going and I wanted to go to but didn't know who I preferred. I couldn't ask anyone from church because tongues would wag and my last boyfriend was in the same ward (congregation). I decided to ask The Doctor because we were just friends and he wouldn't read anything into it. Plus, he still had a girlfriend. I knew The Doctor didn't like to dance so I picked the Heber Creeper for our date. The Heber Creeper is a train that moves slowly around the mountains by Heaber and Dear Creek. They had a couple of cars set up for dancing and a couple passenger cars for sitting and talking. The Doctor and I spent most of the evening sitting and cuddling on the passenger train. No kissing, no hand holding. We just sat with his arm around me and talked non stop for hours. This night I knew there was chemistry between us and I wanted more then friendship. I found out later he felt it too.

The next day was a Sunday. I was in my apartment and really wanted to see him again. My roomies were there along with some of the guys from another apt. They all told me I should call and invite him over. So, I did. He sounded distant and pre-occupied while I spoke with him. I invited him over and he hesitated and then said sure. I hung up feeling deflated. When he arrived an hour or so later he told me he was in the process of breaking up with his girlfriend when I called.

Tuesday we skipped classes and went to Nutty Putty Caves together. We had our first kiss in the middle of a dark cavern. It was an awkward first kiss that left plenty of room for improvement. We practiced a few more times in the cave.

Friday I remember doing dishes in the kitchen and he was sitting at the table. I was discussing how excited I was that I got into an Apartment with my freshman year roommate that was close to campus and affordable. He looked up and asked "what if I ruined your plans?" He then told me how he has been getting the impression he should marry me. A couple weeks later I took him home to meet mom and dad. He asked Dad for permission to marry me. We got engaged officially engaged one month later on April 13th.

Nov 2010

I am so glad he decided to change his rule about dating 5'7" girls. I did however receive many bad looks from tall single girls on campus when we walked hand in hand. The way I see it, my sister married a man who was shorter than her so I was completely justified in marrying someone taller. The best part of the whole thing is we were always just naturally ourselves together. There was no awkward new dating because by the time we started dating we already knew so much about each other. He had even seen me in my glasses which is a very BIG deal. Things just flowed naturally and they do still today. We complete each others sentences and speak just what the other is thinking.  I now know why I was a Biology major for 3 semesters. Had I not been I may have never met the perfect man for me.