How I Met Your Father

So, this draft has been sitting here...apparently I never posted it. It should have been posted on July 31, Jason's 38th birthday.

How I Met Your Mother came out shortly after Jason and I started dating, and it was our favorite show. I actually cried during the final episode in the spring. So, in honor of the show and the fact that Jason and I met ten years ago today, here is our story.

In October of 2003, I was living in San Francisco and Aunt Harmony and Uncle Nathan came out to visit. We were walking around Muir Woods (I need to take you there someday, it is beautiful) and my sister turned to me:

Harmony: "So, there's this guy you should meet."
Me: "Where does he live?"
Harmony: "Columbia."
Me: "I'm never moving back to Columbia. Why would I want to meet a guy who lives there?"
Harmony: "Well, he's really cute, but he's kind of a player. But he has a good job. He does something with Wells Fargo."
Me: "I'm 25 years old, I have no interest in players anymore."

There was a little more to the conversation, but it ended pretty much the same way. Apparently, Harmony's friend Erin had pretty much the same conversation with Jason. 

To find out how this happened, we have to go back a little.

A few months earlier, Harmony and her friend Erin were discussing Erin's brother's best friend, Jason. Jason had just broken up with a slightly crazy girl and they were hoping to find someone to set him up with. I think the conversation went a little like this:

Erin: "He's such a nice guy, and he's so cute. We have to know someone for him."
Harmony: "Ok, what's his type?"
Erin: "He likes thin, short girls with long brown hair. Do we know anyone like that?"
Long pause while thinking.
Harmony: Hits Erin. "Of course we do. My sister!"
Erin: "But your sister just moved to California."
Harmony: "It doesn't matter, we have to set them up."

Back to Christmas 2014. I went home and surprised my family. It was really an awesome story. I was on the phone with my mom and she thought I was still in San Francisco. We were still on the phone when I walked through the front door. Very cool surprise and great Christmas. But I'm rambling.

So, a couple of nights after Christmas, I went out to a bar with Harmony and some of her friends. She called Jason, but he was tired from being out the night before and couldn't make it out. The next night, Harmony went out and ran into him, but I was hanging out with my friends and didn't feel like going out. Neither of us were excited about meeting someone who lived so far away.

Fast forward to Harmony's bridal shower. I had flown back for the weekend and went out with friends Saturday night. Jason was also out, but we never made it to the same place.

The next month was Harmony's wedding. By this point, we had been hearing about each other for six months and I knew that I was moving back east soon. Jason was out of town, but told Harmony that afternoon that he'd "wait for me". I figured there's no way a player would wait for anyone, and didn't think much of it. Apparently, later that night, I talked to him on the phone. He'll have to fill you in on the details of that conversation because, well, uh, I forgot.

Then I got the interview and offer from the Bobcats and began making plans. Any ideas of romance flew out of my head as I started working. Even before the season started, I was working 50 hours/ week. Definitely no time for a relationship, especially a long-distance one.

On my mom's birthday, I was in town for dinner and Harmony mentioned that Jason's birthday party was the next weekend and that he wanted me to go. I had no other plans, so I decided after 9 months of prodding by my sister, there must be something about this guy. And after all, he had waited for me. So, I drove to Columbia that weekend and the morning of what I thought was the party, Harmony said it was the next weekend. So that night, I went out with friends and met up with a guy I had dated a little in college. There was mutual interest, and we talked about going out again soon.

 Harmony asked me about coming back the next weekend and I agreed. By this point, I just wanted to see what this Jason guy was all about.

So, I drove back in town that Saturday and let Harmony "fix me up". At that time, I never wore make up, and she wanted to put some on me. I pretty much yelled at her, saying if a guy didn't like me for me, I didn't want anything to do with him. If he liked me with make-up, then he wouldn't be happy with me without it. I almost didn't go.

But, of course, I did.

We walked into his house for his 28th birthday party and he was nowhere to be seen. We went outside and began talking to some people we knew. I was facing the door when it opened and the best looking guy I'd ever seen stepped out. I knew instantly that it was Jason. He was exactly what I had been looking for - what God had "programmed" me to be attracted to.

We hung out that night until Harmony had to leave, and Jason left with us! We talked all night and realized how much we had in common (except for the fact that he didn't like cats, which he said he would take allergy pills to be able to visit me). I brought him home later and gave him my number. He said he would call when he got back from the beach the next weekend. I was pretty shocked when my phone rang 15 minutes later and it was him!

He called me a few times from the beach, but I still wasn't sure I wanted to deal with a "player". That Saturday Harmony called me and said that Jason's friend wanted him to go out with the friend of a girl he met one night and he said he wouldn't because "he didn't want to mess things up with Talyse." At that point, I knew that he was serious.

Our first date was the following Friday night (I'll get to that story later), and we went out again the next night...to Chuck E. Cheese's with the Bowers boys (who ended up being the ring bearers in our wedding), my mom, Harmony and Nathan.

By that point, I was pretty much hooked, and you know the rest!