You know those stories where people meet their eventual spouse for the first time, and they go home and tell their best friend how they met the person that they are going to marry? Or how they spotted them across a crowded room full of people and it was love at first sight? Well, Christine and I took a little longer.

How We Met

Joffrey

First, let’s back up a little. Before meeting Christine, I had recently gotten out of a long relationship. You know how after you go through a tough breakup, everybody tries to cheer you up with cliches like “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” and “when you fall off the horse, you have to get back on” or “you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince(ss)”? Well, weird animal/love analogies aside, sometimes the cliches are accurate. In my case, it was “You’ll find what you’re looking for as soon as you stop searching”.

I had become a little isolated during my former relationship, so while I was trying to reconnect with old friends, I also wanted to become more social and meet new people. A friend of a friend suggested we join an adult kickball league together. Everything inside of me told me not to do it. I wouldn’t really know anyone, I could barely afford it, and I’d have to commit to giving up my friday nights for the next 2 to 3 months. It was totally outside of my comfort zone. But for some reason, I joined anyway (it was probably the promise of beer). It turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made. 

A group of misfits and castaways is probably the best way to describe our team. Some people had recently moved from a different city. Others had just gotten out of long relationships. One thing we all had in common was our desire to have a good time while connecting with other people. Since we were all a bunch of losers without enough friends to start our own team, we were thrown together and simply known as the “free agents”. We were all mostly single and immediately bonded over our collective desperation and lack of significant companionship.

From the first practice (yes, we practiced for beer-league kickball) I started to form friendships with each member of our team. By the end of the season, I was dating one of the girls from the team. But it wasn’t Christine. Although that relationship was brief, it worked out for the best that it happened before I dated Christine. I had been out of the dating game for so long that I’m sure I was extremely awkward and did all the wrong things. So, Other Girl, if you’re out there and are reading this, Christine thanks you for your sacrifice.

Speaking of my eventual wife, when I first met Christine, I actually thought that she was a little weird. I mean, she came to every game with her friend, yet never played and wasn’t on any team (I later found out that she was there in hopes of meeting a hot guy. Mission accomplished). But her being at every game is probably the reason we’re married today. Even though it took some time for us to develop a romantic relationship (mostly because we were both trying to date other people on the team), we had time to get to know each other, talking on the sidelines, and hanging out at the post-game parties. By the end of the season, we had become friends. But it would take copious amounts of tequila and divine intervention from our friends to lead us to where we are today.

Christine

My story starts a little different than Joffrey’s.  I had been single for a long time, we are talking years and years and YEARS!  I dated/made out with a lot of guys after my long term relationship of 7 years ended, but those dates never made it past one or two outings.  I tried online dating, going out to different events that were heavily populated with men, and going on blind dates set up by friends. I’ve been ghosted (even by my now husband, but we will get in to that later), told that I was too good for the guy by the guy and at times just plain not interested in the guys after going on a date.  I didn’t want to just find a guy, I wanted to find THE GUY. So I decided to forget about meeting the love of my life, and instead made a bucket list and started checking things off with my friend Cecile.  

A few years later, I stumbled across this show with matchmakers called “Ready for Love” and watched it religiously.  I found out that one of the matchmakers wrote a book called “Get the Guy”, so the only logical thing to do was to buy it.  Cecile and I spent lunch breaks reading it out loud, having “ah ha” moments and just plain laughing as we tried to hide the book from co-workers walking by.  A few weeks later, Cecile decided to sign up for kickball and asked if I wanted to play, but I am very clumsy and uncoordinated, so I volunteered to be her sideline cheerleader.

When we got to the kickball field for the first game, I was immediately scoping out the guys.  I had my eye on a few of them, but wanted to get to know their personalities before I decided who to test my “Get the Guy” skills on.  I guess my newly developed skills were too good because I eventually found out the guy I had chosen (and who was going out of his way to flirt with me) was married!  UGH! At that point, I gave up on meeting a guy at kickball and just enjoyed my time hanging out with really cool people (including Joffrey).

On the kickball field Joffrey was hard to miss.  His voice and laughter filled the entire baseball field (yes he can be THAT loud).  He is one of the happiest people, who is easy to talk to, and has a great sense of humor, but at the time I was just interested in being friends (what was wrong with me).  My interest in being more than friends would come months after the last kickball game and after many margaritas.    

The First Kiss

Joffrey

So, I might not be as reliable telling this part of the story. Like I said, tequila was involved. It was Cinco de Mayo and I had decided to go out to a block party in downtown Orlando. I was out with the friend who had talked me into joining kickball, who was trying to date Cecile, another girl from our team (kickball is a hotbed of romance). He convinced me to reach out to our kickball group chat and invite people to come out, in hopes that Cecile might respond. She did. And she brought her friend who had come to all of our games, but never played (yep, it was Christine). It had been months since our kickball season, and I had (literally) just gotten out of my other kickball relationship. But the spark was still there.

I don’t remember much of the day, but I do remember Pita Pit.  After a day of bar-hopping it was the perfect place to stop for a quick bite. While at the table, someone decided it would be a good idea to pass the time by playing Truth or Dare. And if you’ve ever played Truth or Dare, you know it’s basically just an excuse to get people to make out. Well, that’s exactly what happened. I don’t remember if Christine was dared to kiss me or if i was dared to kiss her, I just know that it didn’t take much to convince either of us, because as soon as the challenge was thrown down, we were leaning across the table sampling each other’s pitas, if you know what i mean (sorry). That basically opened the floodgates because we spent the rest of the day dancing together and kissing in the streets of downtown Orlando. 

One would assume that our relationship took off from there. I mean, we clearly had been eyeing each other for a while and finally we each had confirmation that the other felt the same way. Well, remember how I said things between Christine and I took a little longer?

Christine

Cecile and I are both May babies so we look for any excuse to celebrate in May.  So for Cinco de Mayo Cecile and I planned to go to Altamonte Spring for margaritas.  When we got to the restaurant it was dead! We didn’t know where to go next, so Cecile checked her kickball Facebook group and saw that Joffrey messaged asking if anyone was downtown.  We all had to work the next day and I did not want to go downtown at all, but I went anyway because that’s what you do for friends.  

When we got there, we found out that Joffrey and the “other girl” from kickball broke up hours before and then I proceeded to convince him to go on a cruise to pick up women.  Yes, I gave my now husband tips on how to pick up women, but I wasn’t interested in him…that is until the margaritas started kicking in. Cecile and I did the girl thing and went to the bathroom together, where I confessed that I might be interested in Joffrey.  From there it snowballed, Cecile told her other kickball teammate and he proceeded to tell Joffrey’s long time friend, Dana. I had no idea this game of telephone happened and was completely clueless.

Everyone wanted (or more like needed) food so we walked to the Pita Pit (which is now closed…bummer) to soak up some of the alcohol.  This is where the “magic” happened. Our “friends” dared us to kiss (I know, very grade school) and I’m always down for a good kiss so after a bit of hesitation I went in for the kill.  Joffrey had the nerve to not follow the 90/10 rule that we all learned from “Hitch”, he let me go 100, I repeat 100! Even after that I hung out with him the rest of the night, dancing and kissing in the streets of Downtown Orlando.

Together, Finally

Joffrey

After the sparks on Cinco de Mayo, things did go smoothly for a few weeks. Talking or texting everyday. Sneaking time with each other during group hangouts. But then, and I take full responsibility for this, things got weird. (What had happened was) I freaked out a little bit at the thought of another serious relationship so soon after getting out of a long relationship and I started to sabotage it. I ghosted Christine, going days without calling or texting, and being non-committal about hanging out. 

It came to a head one night when we were both out separately and happened to be at the same bar. We awkwardly chatted and danced for a bit before going our separate ways. As the night wrapped up, I was dealing with a situation with a friend of mine when I received a phone call. Christine was (rightfully) confused and (justifiably) asked for an explanation. After unsuccessfully attempting to escape the conversation, I eventually explained that I wanted to slow things down and that I wasn’t looking for anything serious at the time. As I waited for her response, expecting anger or frustration, she calmly told me that she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to be with me. And even though it may have (definitely) bruised my ego a little, it was exactly what I needed to hear. Christine went on to explain that she enjoyed our time together and wanted to continue hanging out, but didn’t want to rush into anything either.

Things moved from there, and soon we took the trip that was a big turning point in our relationship: our Coast-to-Coast adventure (which at the time we called Sunrise/Sunset). From that point on I think we both just knew. And it wasn’t long before we moved in together and eventually got married. 

Christine

After Cinco de Mayo, Joffrey and I texted constantly and eventually went on a couple of dates.  We were having a good time getting to know each other to see if we were a good match, at least that’s what I thought was happening.  But after about three weeks, he ghosted me! I was confused as to why he would do this because we had an overlapping circle of friends, but I let it go.  Cecile and I (if you haven’t figured it out yet, she’s basically my partner in crime for anything) went to the beach the weekend after the ghosting incident and took some strategic pictures for Facebook and he had the nerve to like them!  Later that night we met up with some mutual friends downtown and wouldn’t you know who showed up…Joffrey. We never said one word to each other the whole night, even though we ended up dancing with each other at a few points during the night, but he wasn’t the only one I danced with (gotta keep ‘em guessing). 

We all parted ways at the end of the night and Joffrey and I still never spoke.  When Cecile and I got in the car I started venting about how he was handling the situation and decided I was going to call him out.  I found his name in the contact list, pressed call and he picked up! I immediately started telling him how the night was weird and if we were going to be hanging out in the same circle I didn’t want it to be like that.  I went on to tell him I didn’t know why he ghosted me, but I thought it was messed up because he could have just told me what the deal was. I didn’t even know how much I liked him at this point. He told me he still had feelings for the “other girl”, we talked a little longer and then hung up.

The next day this fool was texting me as if nothing had happened over the last week.  So I figured if he was brave enough to reach out I would indulge him. I started drafting a dating roster with all potential suitors and kicked my “Get the Guy” skills into overdrive.  All I knew at this point was that I was not giving Joffrey the upper hand in this situation. Eventually, he got over the “other girl” and came to his senses that I was the most amazing girl he had ever ghosted.  This must have freaked him out because early on he told me he would never live with another girl again, but here we are now living together AND married!  

And the Adventure Continues…

We’ve come a long way from those early days of awkwardly flirting on the sidelines of a kickball field, or even drunkenly making out in the middle of Pita Pit. And I can’t wait to see how far we’re going to go.

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Where will your next adventure take you?