How I Met Your Mother: Part 2

To backtrack slightly from part 1,  there is one thing I forgot to mention: While I knew as soon as I saw Alise that she was special, she wasn't exactly attracted to me.  In fact, I think to her, I was just another guy at church.  During the time when I was trying to get her attention and she was trying to figure out who I was, I had a very strong desire to become a missionary, with no idea of what a missionary really does.  So I spoke with my friends Angel and Malia who were living in Paraguay as missionaries to come and visit them.  They told me that Alise had asked to visit them as well and suggested we travel together.  Since I was already drawn to Alise I thought this would be a great idea.  Alise was a little more skeptical and after a week or two to think about it, finally said yes.  It took her a while to decide whether or not she wanted me to travel to a third world country with me or if she would rather go alone.  Eventually she decided that it would be safer with me there than without me there.  We scheduled the trip for later in the year and I finally I had confirmation that she knew I existed.

A few months later our study group decided to take a trip together to Yosemite.  Alise generously volunteered her parents house for us to stay at.  Since I was the group leader and we were staying at her parents house we worked together on planning the trip.  She knew I existed and while she was friendly to me, she showed no signs of attraction to me at all.  I still remember how nervous I was asking her out at the first time, mainly because I knew she was special.  I was shopping at Trader Joe's for the trip and used the old "should I get white bread or wheat bread?" excuse to call her.  I asked her if she would go out on a date with me after the trip but her response of "sure, why not, I guess we could do that" was a little underwhelming.

The trip itself went great - regardless of my intentions with her I had a great time.  It was one of those iconic trips which I will always remember - not just because of Alise but with all our other friends who went as well. It was also the first time I met her parents, which was a bigger deal for me than it was for her.  Seeing her interact with her family drew me to her even more.  Family is a big deal to me and seeing her with her family speaks volumes about she felt about family.

Our first date a few weeks later went well.  We had a nice dinner a restaurant called Tarragon, then played pool afterwards.  The only thing which concerned me was the conversation - it felt superficial and restrained.  But as it was only our first date I held out hope we would be able to connect on a deeper level.  Conversation is tough for me when the other person does not engage, I have a tough time getting it going.  There was no openness one would expect or hope for on a good date.  For the next few months this continued as we went out on several dates.  We did spend a lot of time together, Tuesday nights for the study group she lead and Friday nights for the study group I lead and usually a date on Saturday nights.  Frequently we had dinner together with a few other friends on Tuesdays and Fridays as well.  Our friendship grew over the next few months, but romantically there was little chemistry as both of us seemed to be holding back from taking that first step of emotional intimacy critical for a relationship.  After three months of this she broke my heart.  We went to a hockey game (one of our favorite activities together) she told me that we should stop dating because there just wasn't any chemistry.  It was tough for me to argue as I knew it was true as well.  But I also knew the reason I was holding back was because every time I gave a little bit in conversation, I didn't get it back in return.  I knew things weren't going well and protected myself from saying things I wanted to say to her.  Once she broke up with me however, the floodgates were open.  I told her so many things I had been wanting to say to her and we had an amazing conversation - staying up until 1 in the morning talking.  In the end we still broke up and my heart hurting, but on the other hand, I still had hope because it was probably the best conversation I have ever had.  After I left her apartment we were still texting each other for another hour or so.  Years later I found out that she called her mother crying saying she just broke up with the "greatest guy."  Not only were we still very much involved in church together, we had also already bought airline tickets to go on a trip to Paraguay to visit our friends Angel and Malia.

Needless to say, we had to maintain our friendship or things would be very awkward.  More importantly however, we truly enjoyed each other's company and spending time together.  During the next few months we spent a lot of time together preparing for our trip and we did so without trying to be romantic or thinking too much about whether or not some small action "meant" something.  We continued to have dinner together on Tuesdays and Fridays and our friendship grew.  The problem for me was that my attraction to her continued to grow every time we spent time together.  In the weeks before our December trip to Paraguay, I decided that after the trip I was going to tell her I couldn't be friends with her anymore because it was driving me crazy.  I also had a test of sorts.  The Broadway musical version of "The Lion King" was coming to town and I knew she wanted to see it, as did I.  I bought her tickets for Christmas.  I had purchased the tickets before she broke up with me and in good conscience I felt I couldn't give her just one and keep the other for myself, but I also knew there would be a pretty good chance that if I gave her two tickets I wouldn't be going. I like all of my friends but no way would I spend almost $200 on any of them for a Christmas present.  Especially knowing I may decide to end the friendship a couple of weeks after giving her the tickets (our trip to Paraguay was on December 28th-January 8th.)  In the end, I gave her both tickets and as I watched her open them I held out hope she would ask me to go with her: she didn't.