Ten years ago today, Rob and I started dating. I was 14. We had met the previous August at band camp. Being the control-freak overachiever that I am, I had already selected The College I was going to attend even though I was just starting my freshman year in high school. The first day of band camp, Rob was wearing a t-shirt from The College and so he immediately caught my eye. Not in an OMG, I have to date him way, but in an OMG, he's wearing a t-shirt from The College which I'm a wee bit obsessed with way. (I was an academics-first kind of gal.) During that week of band camp, I discovered one of Rob's best qualities, his humor. That week would have been a total drag except that Rob kept me laughing continuously.

Then the school year began and I busied myself with overachieving. I had no interest in having a boyfriend. I saw Rob every other day in band class, and we were casual friends at best. I don't know how it happened, exactly, but I soon found myself crushing on him a bit. I confided this to my cousin who was one of Rob's closest friends, and he agreed to put in a good word for me. That same day, Rob started dating this girl we'll call Statue of a Bitch. I'm sure she really wasn't a bitch (although she was stiff like a statue) but she was my nemesis and so I'll call her whatever the hell I want.

Once I've decided I want something, I tend to obsess a bit. That is amplified 10x if for some reason I can't HAVE what I want. Rob was the obsession to end all obsessions. I was infatuated with him, and Statue of a Bitch was stiffly standing in the way. Typically I would have given up after about a month, because I'm not a patient person. And I tried to get over him, telling myself I was acting just like those immature girls I always made fun of, telling myself there was no guarantee he'd date me even if Statue of a Bitch weren't in the picture. But a million little things kept me going, all meticulously recorded in my 9th grade diary. Like the time a pencil fell out of my locker and Rob happened to be walking by right at that moment and picked it up for me. ("That's his way of secretly showing he's in love with me!" I told myself.) Like how sometimes we'd walk to class together after band. Like how sometimes I swear he was totally flirting with me. Or maybe it was the dreams I had on a near nightly basis in which Rob and I were kissing and Statue of a Bitch was standing off in the corner crying her eyes out.

I doted on Rob for six months. Everyone in school knew about it. I was "That crazy girl who won't stop gushing about Rob L even though his girlfriend is like, standing right there." Somehow I knew, and so I waited. We were both in the orchestra for The Music Man and so we were together a lot that March, rehearsing with the group sometimes until midnight. And then, suddenly, it happened. After dating Statue of a Bitch for 6 months, he dumped her on Horatio Alger day. (It's okay, she's married now.) And a week later, on The Music Man's opening night, I was Rob's new girlfriend. (Because, you know, in high school, the guy's like, "Will you go out with me?" and the girl's like, "Um, okay" and so then you're like, boyfriend/girlfriend.) Only later did I find out that my cousin had threatened to beat up Rob if he didn't ask me out. To this day I'm not sure if Rob was actually interested in me or just wanted to keep his face intact.

The rest of the story is that we dated throughout high school and our years together at The College, and we've been married for nearly 3 years now. Sometimes I look at him and for a moment I'm transported back to my high school self and I think, "Holy shit! Rob L is in my house! He's like, RIGHT HERE." I'm happy to report that I'm just as smitten today as I was 10 years ago. Rob, thanks for a decade of making me laugh and making my dreams come true. And for being a wuss-ass afraid of being beaten up. Yeah, thanks for that most of all.