I was ten and he was eleven when I first met my missionary friend. At first, he was my younger brother's friend and would come to my house sometimes for the card game, Magic and swims in the pond. My brother was always good at including me and graciously sharing, so his friends would naturally become mine sometimes as well. Over the tumultuous years of early teenage-hood, the friendship I shared with this boy evolved beyond the link it had to my brother. High school was largely a solitary, silent experience for me; I felt like a misfit and I was shy. Our friendship was one reprieve I found beyond the cinderblock walls (he didn't attend my school). I was not a misfit with this friend. I felt known and accepted. I was comfortable to lean towards what I hoped to become.
Halfway through my seventeenth year, we were joking and laughing one day when he got suddenly serious and told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I was disappointed, the air sucked right out of me, the disagreeable title looming large. I asked for time to think and came back after days or weeks (I can't remember which) of deep thought to explain: I was afraid of a title stealing our friendship, a precious lifeline to my lonely high-school soul. I didn't really care much for having a boyfriend, I just wanted a best friend. So we made a deal that he would be my best friend before he considered himself my boyfriend and all was well.
When he was nineteen and I was eighteen, he left for two years to Ukraine and I moved across the country to become a freshman at BYU.
This is a short explanation for why dates were so deplorable to me. What two-hour excursion with a near stranger could ever compare to time spent with the closest friend I had ever had? How could I be interested in investing my nerves in the preparation, poise, and shaky-voiced presentation it took to feign regard on a stiff first date when I had become accustomed to going as I was with my friend? I was shy and felt awkward pretending to enjoy going out with strangers. I had no interest in anybody who ever asked me out. My word association would have looked like this:
Dating= panic attack, nervous, heart palpitations,
high blood pressure, sweaty palms, adrenaline,
facade, uncomfortable, unnecessary, torture,
excruciating, waste of time
Friday, February 27, I endured a rigidly friendly date with a guy from my Russian class. He was kind and I was grateful for the dinner, but it was everything I had come to expect from a date: a nice guy who didn't interest me, uncomfortably forced conversation, good (free) food, and an ulcer causing nervousness. The evening made me dread having to perform the same pleasing pretense the next night with Patrick.
That Saturday was drawn out long and slow. After a morning with books and papers, I spent the afternoon shopping with a roommate to assuage my nerves and then waited the remaining minutes before Patrick's arrival in the front part of our apartment with another roommate who was doing schoolwork on the couch. He hadn't told me what to expect, so I ate a slice of bread to hopefully hold me over if dinner wasn't in his plans. The last I had heard from him was Thursday evening when he called and asked if I had any fears or allergies. When I told him I was afraid of needles, he said, "I guess we won't get tattooed then," but he didn't give me any details about what we would do. I was curious, but much, much more apprehensive.
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