How I Met Your Father: The Handsome Hipster from Nebraska

1

This post is part 5 of 5 in the series How I Met Your Father

TW-How I Met Your Father3

When I started chiropractic school, one of the many pieces of advice your grandparents gave me was to wait until I was done with school to enter into a relationship so that I could focus. (Now that I have my own children and have told them I think they should wait until they are 30 to hold hands, I can respect where they were coming from.) At the time, I didn’t think much about this comment, as I knew that getting my doctorate was going to be a lot of work and take most of my time. The first year seemed to be all consuming, and even if I wanted to, I don’t know how I would have had the time to date anyone.

And then, one year after I started school, I had taken the role of University President and was speaking at the orientation for the new chiropractic students starting that spring. I was standing in front of a group of 20 up-and-coming doctors in training, and there he was, the handsome dirty-blonde, dressed as though he’d just stepped out of a J.Crew magazine, was sitting along the aisle in the second row. That day was the first time I met your father.

As fate would have it, I was helping guide his group around the school, giving a tour and sharing helpful information and tips for success. I had actually heard his name a month before we met, as my roommate at the time had needed a subleaser and a “Zac from Nebraska” was the taker.

Our first conversation went like this….

“Hi, are you Zac from Nebraska?”

His reply, “Should I know you or something?”

Very romantic, I know. I explained our connection and then continued on with the day. At the conclusion of the event, we ran into each other in the library. I told him to contact me if he needed anything—and that if he was ever up for a tennis match, to let me know.

Throughout the following spring and summer, we did end up playing a few tennis matches and studying together. I shared my notes and some books, and we chatted on the phone off and on and spent hours one evening talking in my driveway after walking to get an ice cream cone at McDonald’s.

By now I had developed a crush on this hipster from Nebraska, but I wasn’t sure he had the same feelings. We had talked a few brief moments over Christmas break, and he had mentioned getting together New Year’s Eve. I returned to Minnesota early from Iowa to be there for NYE, and he didn’t call.

At first I was heartbroken, and so confused. By the next week when classes started, I was over him, convinced we were destined to just be friends. His birthday is the end of January, and he had asked if my roommate and I would drop him and his friends off at a concert and pick them up. It was an innocent act of friendship, and when we dropped them off at midnight at his house, I wished him a happy birthday and told him I would see him at school on Monday. Thirty minutes after I got home, my phone rang, and it was him—my future husband, asking me out on what would be our first date, February 13, 2004.

He picked me up that night. I was dressed like a librarian (my second most unfortunate outfit choice of our relationship), and we went to the Minneapolis Café for dinner and then to Zeno’s for dessert. He reached for my hand, held it on top of his, and told me that he was dating me with an intention of marriage. My throat sunk to my stomach, my heart fluttered, and my hands began sweating.

Two years later he proposed to me (in my most ugly outfit of our relationship—star velour pajama pants from college and an extra-large grey fleece). I said yes, and the rest is history. I’m so glad that handsome hipster fell for a plain-Jane like me.

TW-How I Met Your Father2

Read more from our How I Met Your Father series:

How I Met Your Father

1 COMMENT

  1. Loved this. And you are so not a Plain Jane. You are one of the most naturally beautiful people I have ever met – inside and out.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here