How I Met Your Mother Part I: False Start is the Right Start (1994-1995)

My wife and I recently celebrated our 10th anniversary of being a couple. The memories are getting hazy...so I decided to write a little about how "we" came to be.
Sometimes the most important moments of your life happen when you're not ready. You see I don't remember the first time I met your mother.

Well obviously, this post is not about the show. But after starting this post my wife got hooked on this show on Netflix. One of the few shows that actually makes me laugh out loud.

It must have been in the fall of 1994, maybe in the Marshall High School choir room or maybe at the Schmidt's house. If there's a place where our story turns, it turned at our mutual friend's Eric and Mikey's house. I was best friends with Eric and your mother was good friends with his younger sister, Mikey.

I wonder what that moment was like - I wish I could be a fly on the wall and watch that moment unfold. I wonder if we spoke for longer than a few moments or if there was a spark in either of our eyes (probably unlikely in both cases). However, we'll never know and if there's a lesson to be had in this section of the story - it's that life doesn't always work out the way you plan. And maybe that's the beauty of it all.

In 1994 I was a senior in high school and Kathryn was a freshmen. I had hated high school up until that point. I don't think I would have quite verbalized it that way, but I was secretly miserable. Eric talked me into joining choir that year and I am glad he did.  I was welcomed into a tight knit group of great guys. I would like to tell you it's because they were charmed by your dear old dad but the truth is Eric was the ring-leader of the "men's" choir and I was his best friend. Choir made me feel like I belonged. I had never felt that way at school before.

I remember hanging around in the choir room and music hallway after school. Bunches of students would show up and we would hang out and talk. I was good friends with Mikey  and with Mikey came more contact with cute underclassmen girls. This might come as a surprise to you, but your father was no ladies man (commence laughing)....so my appearance after school in the music hallway made sense. Usually Eric would take home a car load of students and I usually took 1-2 people home as well.

I have at least one distinct memory of taking Kathryn home at some point in the fall.  Maybe this was the first time I really thought she was cute...I don't know why this particular time stands out in my mind. I do know I ended up taking Kathryn home often as we lived in the same neighborhood. By late 1994 or early 1995, I liked your mother quite a bit. I don't remember if I asked Mikey to get the low down or if she asked Kathryn on her own. All I remember I wasn't going to ask Kathryn out without already knowing the answer. I figured Mikey was putting the good word in for me with Kathryn as well. When I got the "go-ahead" I asked Kathryn to a Valentine's Dinner at Fiesta Texas (a fundraiser for our "Project Graduation") and of course, she said yes.

As there was a choir group performing, many of our mutual friends were going. So it felt more safe to make it a double-date, we went with Mikey and her friend, Chris Locke.  We crammed all four of us into my little Toyota truck (which could legally and safely only sit three). I have a picture from this first date but I will not post it because let's just say no one is required to completely embarrass oneself on the internet.  Suffice to say in these days I had "Conan O'Brien" hair before it was cool (oh wait, it never was, was it?).

yes. just imagine this do' on an awkward teenager wearing the best from Mervyn's. it's really sad to think with a few minor adjustments for fashion sense, attitude and hair style my life in high school would have been a lot less painful (and the pictures less cringe worthy).

I don't remember very much of the date itself, except being nervous and getting lost on the way home in the fog underneath I-10. I do remember that Kathryn stayed right next to me in my bucket seat even though she could have easily moved over once we dropped Chris and Mikey off. I kept my arm around her even though I was shifting gears about every 10 seconds. I remember thinking the date went well as I drove home that night.

We never got to a second date though.

I remember walking to a few classes with Kathryn and driving her home but I don't remember that much after that first date. Within a week or two of our first date Kathryn got mono and she had to stay home for 2-3 weeks away from school. She told me I didn't call her very often  which of course, I will respectfully deny. The next time I saw her (at a church function at my church - Kathryn attended because of Mikey) we somehow "broke up". I'm not real clear why this was done but I do remember the break up came via  Mikey. I remember being pissed off about it because we never really kissed but otherwise, I just moved on with my busy senior year.

I liked Kathryn but honestly I was a little relieved by the "break up". The whole time we were dating I felt a little embarrassed that I was dating a freshmen. It wasn't that Kathryn was immature or that I was beneath dating someone younger - I felt embarrassed by perceived peer pressure. Yes, that's right. Perceived peer pressure. No one made fun of me, no one said I shouldn't date Kathryn but I felt that people would think it was pathetic for a senior to date a freshmen (hmm...okay, maybe objectively it was but that's another point). It took me a long time to learn that other people's opinions are a terrible gauge of who you should like. If you like someone for who they are then don't worry about what other people think.

This "embarrassment" of dating lower classmen girls didn't stop me from dating a sophomore a few weeks later but ya know, an age difference of one year matters in high school.

Later in the year, we both tried out for the school musical, The Music Man. We even read lines together and had a lot of fun. Neither of us got the supporting roles we read for but we landed minor roles. I was one of the "Train Salesmen", part of the main chorus and a dancer while Kathryn was also in the main chorus and a dancer.  As fate would have it, we even ended up being paired as dance partners!  I think both of us toyed with the idea of getting back together but then I started flirting with another cast member that put an end to that.

The summer came and by then we had both moved on to different interests.  At the time I didn't think much about our dating experiment. It seemed like we were a better fit to be friends anyway.  We were just too different. This brings me back to the idea of how life works out.  You see in this first part of our journey, this "false start" was the right start for us. It was perfect because, well, every story worth telling needs a bit of drama and it gave us just enough, just a small glimpse of the other person.

That second date and first kiss would come but it would take almost seven long years to get there.