This is a shade late for Valentine's Day, but that's only because my husband and I spent the day going about town and doing the sorts of things we love to do, topped off with a nice dinner. And before you start leaving comments about how I'm going back on my word and writing a post about personal stuff instead of pop culture nonsense, you're wrong. This is sort of a continuation of my "secret origin", so if you want more dirt on me, keep reading.
Back in 1992, I was a senior in high school, and frankly, I was miserable. Back then, if you were a girl who was into comics and sci-fi/horror and cartoons and toys and had little-to-no interest in what was considered "normal" girly things, you were a freak of nature, just asking to be mocked. Wearing glasses, carrying a few extra pounds, and having a preference for shorter hair didn't help much either. I won't go into details as to what they did -- it was mostly verbal and emotional abuse, with the occasional physical fight tossed in to break up the monotony, along with one incident that bordered on indecent exposure -- but I will say that I put up with various levels of it for nearly a decade in four different school systems. Anyhow, I would go to school every day and endure whatever torture du jour my peers thought up, then go back home and hide in my room and bury myself in the same fantasies that got me ostracized in the first place (I never skipped class: despite how much my sanity was crumbling, I had no desire to be held back and make this Hell last any longer than it had to). I had two good friends in high school, both of whom were a bit odd like me, but they managed it better, and if not for them, my life would have turned out much differently. For one thing, I would have never met my husband.
It was an afternoon in early March, right after school let out for the day. My friend Jennifer had to pick up something she'd left back in the Drafting classroom, so I accompanied her. After we got there, she started talking with a guy she knew about whatever project the Drafting students were working on, and while I waited for them to wrap it up, I heard the guy's brother -- who was also playing tag-along that day -- make a Star Wars joke. Don't ask me what it was, I no longer remember, but I got the reference and I laughed. This caught his attention, we talked ever so briefly, and then Jennifer and I left. That was it. No big hullabaloo, no fireworks, no crossing a crowded room and staring soulfully into each other's eyes. But I did apparently make an impression on this guy, because he started following me around school...which made me nervous, because the only people who normally paid attention to me were the ones who seemed intent on driving me insane. He learned my class schedule and would show up outside the door seconds after the bell rang (seeing as how he was two grades behind me and we shared no classes together, this was a pretty neat trick) usually with a new joke or other obscure reference at the ready, probably as a test to see if the first time was only a fluke. It wasn't, of course, and as I slowly let my guard down, I learned that he got hassled just as much as I did. His name was Jamin -- which took me a good long while to get correct -- and within a few weeks, I had a third friend.
Then the fallout began. The kids who preyed upon me set their sights upon Jamin too -- I recall one of them calling out as we walked down the hall, "Hey, which one of you is the guy and which one's the girl?" -- and this scared me so bad that I told him at one point to stay away from me. But he wouldn't let me go. By the time Easter break came around, one girl I was on decent terms with convinced us that we should be an actual couple, and we agreed to it just to shut her up. Not much changed for us at first -- it took until May for the awkward kissing sessions to begin -- but the most important thing to come out of our meeting was that we helped each other survive. Neither of us was the lonely weirdo anymore, we each had someone to talk to and vent with. Falling in love was the bonus.
There was a brief break-up (during which time we were still great friends), but we soon realized after trying to see other people how stupid we were and got back together again, finally getting married in 1998. It's been a wonderful, worry-free marriage, full of goofy adventures and memories that "normal" people would shake their heads at in disbelief, because we haven't changed a bit. We're still dorky lil' nerdlings that can lean on each other when the real world mocks us for what we enjoy.
Oh, as for what we did on Valentine's Day? We stopped at some of our favorite collectibles stores and blew nearly 100 bucks on comics and DVDs. Yes, we got got each other the usual flowers and cards and candy, but we wanted to do something fun too!
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