The first date, if you can call it that

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So, to continue the story, future-hubby and I had planned to go on a double date with a friend of mine and her boyfriend, but I got sick at the last minute. So we ended up going to Pizza Hut one night with a different friend of mine, just the three of us. Really romantic, right? See, my parents wouldn't let me go on a solo date until I was 16. We went back to my house, and he stayed for almost two hours. For some reason, we watched a PBS show about carnivorous plants.

When he was ready to leave, I walked him upstairs to the front door. My brother followed us, trying to spy. So, we stood there on the front step. I was waiting for something - a hug, a peck on the cheek - something. Instead, I got a handshake. I actually laughed because I knew what everyone downstairs was thinking we were doing, and it wasn't shaking hands! Anyway, we started doing more and more things together - concerts, going out to eat, and lots of talking on the phone. It's a riot to go back and read my diary. There were days I was nuts about him and days I was mad at him, but all through the summer, I kept saying I couldn't imagine being without him. By mid-August, he finally kissed me. And yet he still wouldn't call himself my boyfriend!

He went away to college that year, and I was stuck at home in eleventh grade. That was only the first year of many years of long distance bills and only seeing each other during the summer. How did our relationship survive? You'll have to come back again another day to find out!