Meetings (by Thomas)

I first "met" Rebecca on March 25, 2008. I had just joined a homeschool alumni association (http://www.homeschoolalumni.com/), and when you're new to the site, it automatically rotates your profile picture with those of other newbies along the top of the home page. Rebecca, being the welcoming person that she is, clicked on my profile and dropped a random note on my wall saying basically, "Hey, welcome to HSA!" (Incidentally, she said later that part of the reason she clicked on the picture was because she thought I was cute. =P ) In any case, I saw the note and politely reciprocated by writing on her wall and thanking her for the welcome. While I was there, I noticed she was a fellow scuba diver, and we began making conversation.

We hit it off immediately. Wall posts led to friending each other on facebook, writing conversational PMs and e-mails, and IMing. I began to be interested in her very quickly...as in a couple days...an interest that was only increased when I saw more pictures of her and realized that she was far cuter than I had first realized. =) The e-mails began to increase in length, depth, and frequency. I believe we actually traded something like 5 large (page length, at least) e-mails on one particular day. My interest seemed to be apparent and she seemed to be reciprocating.

Our IM sessions began to increase in time and frequency as well, until we reached the point when we were literally chatting nearly all day. We got to know each other extremely quickly, learning about each other's doctrine, values, family, likes/dislikes, favorites, etc.....everything from the very deep and serious to the very frivolous.

The situation became untenable very quickly. It was obvious to me that she was more than a typical female friend in my mind, and she seemed to think quite highly of me as well. That was incongruous with my committment not to date around or enter a relationship on the fly....only with a purposeful intent to marry. So I realized I had two options....push ahead and ask Rebecca if she was interested in a relationship, or let it all drop. I prayed about it and decided to push ahead.

I still remember that IM conversation quite clearly. We stopped short of actually entering a relationship (we hadn't even met each other!!), but we admitted our respective interest, and agreed to a season of "intentional friendship" until we could meet at the HSA reunion in July.

My mom was a little less than thrilled at first when I told her, for obvious reasons. She was afraid that my emotions were just see-sawing, that it was just a quick crush, and that I really wasn't interested in a serious relationship. She also didn't know this girl from Eve, so it was harder for her to be excited about it. I assured her the best I could, and hoped she would warm up quickly.

This part makes me laugh every time. Evidently Rebecca's mom went absolutely Private Investigator on me at that point, which is very good, but rather amusing. She looked me up EVERYWHERE. She checked out my HSA profile, Facebook profile, listened to and read the lyrics of my favorite songs, looked up my favorite movies, looked at every picture of me, watched every movie I had taken, searched for me in my home newspaper and on Google, and even checked with NASA to make sure I really was an intern with them. Everything checked out. She started off by telling Rebecca that people aren't always what they seem online and came back saying, "I'm falling in love with this guy." =P Of course that only encouraged Rebecca more.

And so it began......