At work tonight, I was talking with one of my girlfriends about old boyfriends. You know how the conversation goes: I do not know why I dated him, he was such a jerk, he was not even cute, etc. The boy I went out on my very first date with though, I will always brag about him 🙂

I met Sean in our Confirmation class. There really are not a lot of better places to meet a boy. He was smart, funny, and unbelievably good looking. I still cannot really believe that we dated at all.

I had never met him before this class because even though he was a country boy, he went to an all boys’ school in the city. He played football and rugby. He was tan with dark brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes. Are you getting the picture yet? Who ever meets boys like this in real life?

After the first couple meetings of the class, he started making it a priority to be in my group. Being only 16 at the time, I just thought he was being nice and that he, being an outsider, just felt more comfortable being in the same group all the time because of the familiarity of it.

He asked me questions about school, about the sports I played, about my job. Again, I thought he was only being friendly. He asked me about my friends, what I did for fun, did I have a boyfriend. I still hang my head over how clueless I was.

We had somehow never seen each other at church and it came out that we just always attended masses at different times. Now with the knowledge of when I would be at church, he must have been waiting outside in his car one Saturday night. As soon as people starting pouring out the front door, he hurriedly pushed his way inside.

My mother was the first to see him. “Isn’t that Sean?” she asked me.

I immediately perked up, saw him, and (after being pushed in his direction) went over to see why he had appeared. He led me back over to my parents, looked at my father and said, “Sir, I would like to take Amber out to dinner. Is that ok?”

“Now?” My father is a man of many words…

I had a mini panic attack thinking first of all, that my father would say no. Secondly, I was embarassed about my outfit choice. Who wants to go out on a date with the most handsome boy they have ever seen while wearing your church clothes?

My mother, ever helpful, nudged my father who agreed I could go with Sean as long as he had me home by curfew. He agreed and we walked out to his truck. The thing was a monster. You needed to step up on a platform in order to climb in it. Unfortunately, there was no platform on the passenger side of the truck. Sean was kind enough to hold my door open for me, but being shy and embarassed, he did not offer to help me up. I unceremoniously jumped/launched myself into the cab of the truck.

I could feel the flush on my face as he walked around to his side and got in. Not a SINGLE word was spoken the entire way to the pizza palor he took me to. While we were waiting in line to order our food, I did something that I am more than glad he did not notice.

At this point in my life, I was obsessed with this pair of brown clogs that I wore until they fell apart. While standing next to Sean, I could not decide if he was actually taller than me. I slipped one foot out of my shoe and put my socked foot on the floor. Relief spread through my body as I realized that he was more than a head taller than me.

We had a pleasant meal, saw each other a few more times, and then, as relationships with seniors tend to go, petered out after a few months. He was preparing to go to school and I was just glad we had the fun we did.

The first time he had called the house and left a message on our answering machine (totally dating myself- oh boy!) my mother happened to check the messages and was so excited on my behalf that she wrote down his phone number on the nearest thing. This happened to be the box for the game of LIFE. To this day, that telephone number is on the side of the box at my parents’ house. CJ has seen it before and he thinks the story is quite funny. He is glad that when I met him I was much less oblivious as we never would have started dating if it were not for me. That, however, is a story for another time.