Our Story - Part One

Mark - Growing up I always wanted to have a family and to be a father. I didn't have any plans on how many children I would have. I just assumed that I would have three children like my parents did. The person that I would marry would be a good mother and someone that I really enjoyed being around. Beyond that I didn't know much about what I was looking for.

I didn't become interested in dating in High School until my junior year. But once I made the decision to date, I jumped in with two feet. I tried everything I knew. I passed notes to girls in class. I would ask them for their phone numbers. I would talk to them for hours on the phone. I even asked a couple of them out. However no one ever seemed to be that interested in me. After awhile, I began to wonder if anyone every would be interested in me.

I tried another strategy when I was a senior. I tried dating a couple of freshman girls. Both were disasters. Each was too immature for any kind of real relationship. Neither lasted more than a couple of months. I was sure no one else older was interested in me. So I spent all the dances (including the prom) at home and alone.

So finding a high school sweetheart was now out of the picture. I began considering my prospects once I went off to college. I figured that I'd have a much better chance there. I started counting the benefits of waiting until I was in college. First no one would know me there. No one would know of my embarrassing social past. Second I could pretend to be someone that I wasn't. That was a big plus. I knew no one would be interested in the way I was. I figured that a radical change in who I was would work out better for me. So I waited out my time in High School and counted to the day that I would move far away from everyone in my home town.

Julie - At the age of four, I thought that you were suppose to grow up and marry your Mother's best friend's son. It's what I saw frequently on TV shows and movies. It also probably helped that the boy that I first had a crush on was my best friend and of course was my Mother's best friend's son.

As I got older, I realized that this wasn't a practical plan. I discovered that best friends don't like kissing someone they think of as their sister. And I always seemed to be the girl that my guy friends liked to hang out with as a friend, but nothing more. (See guys you aren't the only ones that get the line "Let's just be friends".)

I also had another complication in finding the right guy to marry. I knew that I wanted to be married to someone who loved the Gospel and the Church that I loved so much. A friend of mine (yeah you guessed it, one of the guys that I liked but I was just someone to give advice to, not to date) told me that I should never settle for anything less than an Eagle Scout and return missionary from our Church. I knew he was right. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of these in Ohio. So I didn't date a whole lot in high school. Then I didn't date a whole lot in college. In fact, at one point I went five years without a date, because there was no one I was interested in dating that was interested in dating me. I wondered if I would ever find someone to date let alone marry.