Met-My-Mate Mondays, Part Two

My friend LL over at vitafamiliae started telling her story about meeting her husband and I decided to join in. If you want to read her story or play along, click the button below.



If you want to read the beginning of my story from last week click here.

I finished my undergraduate degree in December 1994. My parents paid for the first three years of college, but I had to borrow the money for the last year. Thankfully, Virginia Tech lowered the number of credits (by four I think) needed to graduate and I was able to graduate a semester early. I had a very good time as an undergraduate and I didn’t study as much as I should have. My 3.2 GPA was not good enough to get into physical therapy school at the time. After receiving all the rejection letters, I applied to Tech for graduate school. I started out in the Cardiac Therapy Program in the Human Nutrition, Food, and Exercise department. I really didn’t mind having to be at the gym or pool three days a week at 5:30 AM; I just found it extremely boring so after two semesters I dropped the cardiac program and started preparing to do my thesis research on sports nutrition. I loved my advisor, Dr. Rankin.

How does this relate to “Met My Mate” Chris? I am getting to it. The point is that I stayed at Tech because the idea of entering into the real world job market with a biology degree did not appeal to me at all.

At some point during my first year of graduate school, I got a new job in the library as a Science Reference Desk Assistant. I loved this job. I helped fellow students and sometime professors find research articles or other texts. When it wasn’t busy, I studied. I liked this job so much that I thought about getting my Masters in Library Science if I didn’t get into PT school. (Have I mentioned how much I loved college?)

After not seeing (or hearing from or hearing about) Chris since March 1995, I saw him again in the summer of 1996. I was sitting at the Science Reference Desk one Friday afternoon and Jeff (our former coworker) and Chris got off the elevator and walked over to say hello. As soon I as I saw Chris get off the elevator I thought, “Oh no, I have a crush on him.” I don’t’ know why I immediately thought I had a crush on him. I was dating someone else at the time and we hadn’t said a word to each other for a long time. He was very cute though (and still is). .

Chris and Jeff walked over and started talking to me. Somehow we decided to go out when I was finished with work at 5:00. I don’t know where my boyfriend was but he didn’t go. I think it was Chris, Jeff, and Natasha (one of my roommates from undergrad who had come for a visit). We had a great evening but I didn’t consider it a date. I don’t think I saw him the next night.

I knew something was wrong with my relationship with the guy I had been dating for a year if I could hang out with another guy for an evening and have a wonderful time. I was a little confused about this but I didn’t expect to see Chris again. In fact, I didn’t see him again the rest of the summer. At one point, he called and asked if I wanted to drive up to Northern Virginia (a four hour drive) the next day for a Sting concert. For some reason I couldn’t go. Maybe I had to work. At least I didn’t go at the last minute which would have showed too much eagerness on my part. I didn’t hear from him the rest of the summer.