Love Story, Part II

When we left off, Paul and I had started emailing and IMing a lot.

Wait...I forgot a tidbit that belongs in the last post.  The night after I interviewed him, Paul and I ended up sitting outside the conference dance and chatting for hours.  Topics included a debate over the correctness of the term "States' Rights," the evils of low-flow toilets, and a hefty dose of making fun of Presbyterians...it was a very "us" conversation.  When I left (my school never stayed in the conference hotel; we all just drove home at night), I went to the cast party for a show I'd crewed.  There, I said to some friends who'd attended Model UN in the past, "hey, do you remember Paul, the guy who represented Papua New Guinea last year?  [They did.  I told you, he was kind of a big deal in Youth in Government circles.]  Well, I'm going to have his babies."

Spoiler Alert: I was right.

Ok, back to a month after that.  At Christmas break, Paul was flying into Nashville, so we arranged to meet up.  My family was convinced that he was going to carjack me if I picked him up from the airport by myself, so my best friend came along.  We hung around until Paul's dad made it into town and then met up with him at Cracker Barrel.  Let's see...brunch with a boy I like but don't know if likes me, my BFF graciously third-wheeling to appease my paranoid family, and the boy's dad who...can be kind of intense.  Not the most cohesive party ever, and Paul and his dad did this thing (I now know) they always do, where conversation gets awkwardly heated even when everyone agrees on the topic being discussed.  I left thinking my chances were sunk because I was clearly too dumb for these people.

Apparently I held my own well enough, though, because Paul kept emailing me.  Because of a few mentions he made of another girl, I assumed he wasn't interested in me that way, but we had some great conversations and I figured I'd settle for just being friends.  He passed back through Nashville on the way back to college after Spring Break.  His flight was early pretty early, so he came up the day before and stayed on my couch.  It also happened to be my school's Sadie Hawkins dance, so he went with me.  I don't think we actually danced at all, but we did have a pretty good time afterwards on a Walmart scavenger hunt with a group of my friends. 

A couple of months later, it was time for Youth Legislature, the mock state government conference.  I was pretty giddy that he was going to be there.  I'd gone into the office to make copies for the newspaper when he arrived to check in.  He greeted me by picking me up in a hug and spinning me around.  "Hmm," thought my terrifically observant self, "maybe he does like me..."  My position in the press corps meant I could pretty much hang out with him all day and still get my "work" done, so I did.

After the dance on Saturday evening, we walked up the steps of the State Capitol and sat at the foot of the statue of Senator Carmack.  We huddled together (it was cold out!) and had a good define-the-relationship talk.

Youth Leg dance, 2004.  Super flattering photo.

On Sunday morning, I went to Mass with him.  It was Palm Sunday, and this was the first Mass I ever attended.  After the conference was over that afternoon, he had several hours before his flight back to school.  We went to Centennial Park and wandered a bit before finding a bench swing to occupy.  We talked about the future and our mutual desire not to spend time/effort on a relationship that wasn't going to go somewhere.  Then I dropped him off at the airport and cried my eyes out over his having to leave.

We filled the time after this writing letters to each other (on paper!  with stamps!) and continuing to email/IM.  He came to Nashville for my high school graduation and for a few other weekend visits over the summer.  During the last visit before I went off to college, he gave me his class ring.

Funny story about that ring:  On one of my first nights at UTM, I went to play a game with my Big Sis from the honors program and a friend of hers.  She noticed the ring and asked what school it was from.  When I told her, she and her friend blurted out Paul's name in unison.  I was dumbfounded.  "Um...yeah, it's his.  How did you know?"  They didn't.  Big Sis had done UN and Leg and had told her friend about Paul, and he was their only association with CBHS. 

In the third installment:  Paul takes back his ring and then gives me two more.
(Be sure to read all the other love stories linked over at the Camp.)

How We Met

I'm late to the party, but I don't care.  I adore Grace's love story link-up and want to play, too.
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Paul doesn't like it when I tell people we met at Nerd Convention, but we did.  Here's how it went down.

My sophomore year of high school, I went to Model United Nations as a delegate representing Luxembourg.  My team's proposal didn't make it out of subcommittee, so the rest of the weekend was fully devoted to people-watching and general frivolity.  Paul was representing Poland and basically owned the General Assembly.  I developed a terrible crush.

The next year, I got smart and attended as a member of the Press Corps.  Press was all of the fun of getting to hang around the conference and talk to people, with none of the work of having to come up with a proposal ahead of time or the stress of having to present said proposal.  One of the GA sessions I sat in on featured a particularly stirring oration from Paul, and after the day wrapped up, I got one of the press guys from his high school to introduce me to him.  I stammered something to the effect of, "It's so nice to meet you; that was a really great speech."  His response was to grunt in my general direction and walk away.  I don't think Paul actually even remembers this event.  He claims he thought I was making fun of him.  Whatever.

There is one picture of us together that exists from this period,
but it has been lost to the mists of time.  This is the hotel where it all happened.

During my senior year, I returned to the Press Corps again, and was delighted to find that Paul was back as a college staff member.  When my editor suggested someone doing a profile on a college staffer--and specifically Paul, because he was pretty much a Youth in Government celebrity--I just about knocked people down to get the assignment.  Another girl ended up tagging along and co-writing with me, but she got in not one edgewise word during the interview.  We cornered Paul at the end of a hallway, where he'd been trying to get some work done.  He seemed annoyed that we were pestering him but answered our questions anyway.  At the end of the interview, which (to my great joy) ended up being way more conversational/flirty than I was expecting, I was racking my brain to figure out how to make sure he had to talk to me again.  Paul had published a guide to parliamentary procedure but didn't have any with him that weekend.  I bought one just so I could slip him my contact info all casual-like.

My plan worked (um, obviously).  He mailed me the book and included his email address.  We struck up a conversation via email and AIM (hey, it was 2003), and I started falling hard. 

Coming up in Part II: an awkward breakfast with Paul's dad, an awkward Sadie Hawkins dance, and a DTR on the steps of the State Capitol.