You had me from “Dibs”

One year since Scott and I said “I do”. Not that we doubted we would. For most of our friends and family, we were a bit of foregone conclusion from the moment we started dating. We just worked.

But making it that first year is still a big deal, at least for us. Nothing really changed after our wedding, people seriously aren’t kidding when they say marriage doesn’t change things (except taxes). We still spend our free time (limited as it is these days) hanging out with our fur-babies, enjoying good beer, and playing any game we can compete against each other in. Scott still can’t cook anything unless it’s in a slow cooker. I still make to many to-do lists for redecorating. And we’re still as happy as we were the day we said our vows.

So, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I’d like to go back to where it all began.

From 2010 until 2012, Scott and I both worked at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. While we both worked food and beverage, we were in different restaurants and only occasionally crossed paths. Scott spent most of his time outside of work with his fraternity brothers while I hung out with a lot of my co-workers. We had met and would stop to say ‘hi’ if we passed each other in the hallways, but we never really had an opportunity to get to know one another.

We were also both attending UNC-Asheville at the time, graduating only one year apart. But he was a Psychology and I was in Mass Communication. Again, he was also in a fraternity. I spent most of my time on campus either in class or in the newspaper office. We never even crossed paths at school.

And then came May of 2014. We had both left the resort. Scott was working as an Outlet Manager for another hotel in downtown Asheville. I was working at a recently opened restaurant also in downtown. My General Manager had, at one time, been Scott’s boss at Grove Park. Which was why, when Scott took a wrong turn on his way to meet a friend at a local bar, he stumbled across the restaurant and decided to pop in to say hello to his old boss. We recognized each other, said our hellos and how-have-you-beens and went our way. Me, back to work; him, to the bar to have a drink and catch up with the manager. He called his buddy to meet him there instead and they hung out until the restaurant closed. Little did I know at the time, Scott turned to his friend at one point, smacked him on the shoulder, and called ‘dibs’ on the girl busy cleaning up the restaurant.

Like most nights after work, I and several of our other staff members wandered down a few doors to our usual bar for drinks. Scott and his friend decided to join us as he knew quite a few of my co-workers. I was hanging out next to the bar with a couple of the guys letting off some stem from the day (translation: venting about rude guests and lazy staff) when one of my co-workers waltzes up with this gem: “Scott says you should come talk to him”.

I know, smooth right?

I wander over to his table and fire back with, “So, I heard I’ve been summoned apparently?”

Cue a very panicked Scott who immediately tries to back-pedal with, “What? No, I didn’t. Nope.” With a slight eye roll, I go back to my beer and Scott precedes to get laughed at by his buddy for his less-than-stellar game.

Later that same night, after he and his buddy have left, my phone beeps with an incoming Facebook message. It was Scott, commenting on how good it was to see me again and suggesting we hang out some time. And yes, giving me his phone number.

Having just recently been involved in a couple of dumb guy situations, I wasn’t exactly interested in the dating game. Which is why I didn’t utilize his number until a couple of months later to invite him to join some of us going out after work. My intention was to subtly deliver the message that we could be friends, but I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. It was too subtle for Scott, who asked me out again at the end of the night with the invitation to hang out “just the two of us”.

Cue gossip session over brunch the next day with my best friend who not only knew Scott but had hung out with him before through her brother. Immediately after expressing my thoughts that I wasn’t sure about this as Scott didn’t really seem like my type, she responded with, “Yeah, that’s actually why you should. Go out with him”. (I couldn’t argue, she had a point. My exes were idiots.)

I started to hang out with Scott on a regular basis, but I was still hesitant to define our relationship as anything more than friends. I kept telling myself that I enjoyed being single, that I wasn’t interested in having a boyfriend.

Until a trip home that August. I went out to a bar with my sister and cousin. We danced, we drank, we had a good time. An then I found myself on the dance floor with a random guy who seemed nice enough…until he started making suggestive comments. Ehhh, wrong turn buddy. I quickly informed him, “My boyfriend wouldn’t appreciate that” and left. And I knew…months of Scott just being there and waiting for me had worn me down.

When I went home after my trip and told him the story he (of course) laughed at me. He had been telling his buddy we were “unofficially-official” for a while. He was just waiting for me to catch up.

The rest, as they say, is history…or at least a story for a different day.