David and I carried on as friends for a few weeks. As if the awkward friend/coffee date had never happened. Those few weeks are a little bit of a blur, and I don’t remember us interacting a whole lot. Except over AIM aka AOL instant messenger. Because that was our generation’s version of snapchat. I don’t remember us chatting often, and I’m much too embarrassed to dig out those transcripts.
Just for story’s sake, I’m going to tell you about some weird interactions we had during the month after our “date.”
Game Night: The longest conversation I remember having with David during this time was the CRU weekly meeting before Thanksgiving break. We were talking in the lobby about what we were going to do on our breaks, just talking back and forth. And I mentioned I was excited because I was heading to the midnight premiere of Twilight that night. (feel free to judge me, I’m still judging myself for that one) David laughed at me, and rightfully talked about what a joke Twilight was. (joke’s on him, because he attended the midnight premiere of the THIRD twilight movie with me two years later) Cru was having a “game night” in the Cook 107, the room we normally meet in, so I asked if he was going to go to that. We both glanced in the room, and started cracking up. David looked at me and said, “Well, looks like game night’s going really well.” There were only two people in a room that holds 200. They were playing Scrabble.
AIM burn: I got back from seeing Twilight around 2AM that night. On the way there I had told my friends that, yes, I definitely liked David Phipps! We squealed and laughed and then we saw Twilight and swore up and down it was the best thing we’d ever experienced. Still on my Edward Cullen high, I checked my laptop before going to bed. I’d received one message on my AIM away message while I was gone. It was from David. And it said, “I hope your movie’s cancelled.”
Happy Thanksgiving: This feels very Mean Girls. But on Thanksgiving, I texted him “happy thanksgiving.” And a day later, he texted me back “thanks.” That’s all, just “thanks.”
(picture for proof that we actually did start dating eventually. i know it’s hard to believe after hearing how very clearly interested David was in me.)
The week after Thanksgiving break is when things actually started happening for us. Here’s what you need to know: I liked David. So I continually dropped subtle hints that I’d be willing to give LOST a try. Even though I didn’t want to. I did want to spend time with David, so that was my lame excuse for an “in.”
David lived in Blacksburg (a half hour from Radford, with Virginia Tech students), so my friend Hannah and I consistently gave him a hard time about “not going to Radford.” He was in Blacksburg all the time so he didn’t hang out with us much. Luckily, my best friend Elizabeth went to VT. So one night, when she wanted to be picked up from a dance party and to have a sleepover in my dorm, Hannah and I went to pick her up. And since we were in Blacksburg, Hannah called David.
“David!!!! What’s your address?!?! We’re coming over! Oh also we’re bringing some random girl that we picked up from a party!” The random girl was my best friend and the party we picked her up from was a christian ministry’s dance party. But you know, details schmetails.
We busted into David’s apartment and made ourselves at home, just like freshmen tend to do. Years later I found out that David and his roommates 100% believed that Elizabeth was a random drunk stranger we’d picked up from a party. But nope :] She’s just wild that way! Somehow we invited ourselves in long enough to watch a movie, not just a regular movie, but Heavyweights with Ben Stiller. (if you don’t know anything about this movie, google it ASAP. it’s SO worth your time.) We laughed through the entire movie and by the time it was over it was way late at night. We were walking down the steps to my car when David ran out of his door.
“Kaitlyn, do you want to come over and watch LOST tomorrow?”
If it wasn’t so dark and I’m pretty sure everyone would’ve known how furiously I was blushing. I replied with a simple “yes” and he said he’d text me. We started the drive back to Radford and Hannah fell asleep in the back seat. Elizabeth and I spent the whole time dissecting what this could mean. She said she noticed that David glanced over at me every time I laughed during the movie. This time it was definitely a date. A low key, non romantic, a little bit lame date. But a date none the less.
Continued here: The one where I guilt David into being my boyfriend.
note* I thought it’d be fun to recount our love story here on the blog. It’s funny, it’s most definitely awkward, and it tells you a little bit about our not so stellar beginnings. Also, it’s one of my favorite stories to tell. Also, when I told David my idea he said “Oh noooooo.” I’ll be posting updates every Friday for the next few weeks! And I’m politely asking that you do not judge the photos because they are most definitely pulled from facebook and terrible, terrible quality :]
