Met my wife in HS.
Totally crushed on her in 10th grade. She didn't know my name. Spent the entire summer after 10th grade crushing on her HARD listening to Janet Jackson's "Let's wait awhile"...
Became aware of one another in 11th grade because we were in choir together. Crush waned a bit.
She met my sister in 12th grade and was friends with my sister and mom. We became friends. I wouldn't ask her out because she was "too much". Kinda hyper. Not really sure how to put it. I was very chill and she was very...loud. Freaked me out.
I'll never forget it. I was sitting in my living room in Arcadia, CA (I'd moved in with my step-dad after HS in Santa Monica) and was bored out of my damned mind. I literally called everyone in my day planner (remember those?). She was the ONLY person to call me back. Not even my closest homies called me back until like a week later.
So I asked her out. On our first date, she tells me, "we're gonna get married, we're gonna have kids, the first one's gonna be a boy and he's gonna be named Derek" I'm not sure I want a second date and she had our whole lives planned.
Well, that second date was a date for the ages and well...she was right.
I knew right away that she was the one for me. I asked her to marry me when I was still 18...on her 19th birthday. I think I spent $40 on her engagement ring...her birth stone in a very plain white gold setting.
And, btw, she must be psychic because we did get married, we've had 5 kids, our first was a boy and we named him Derek.
We've been together 31 years and married 28 (I insisted on being 21 when we got married because I didn't want any of the kids saying, "well, YOU GUYS weren't 21...). We've only been with each other and we're still crazy in love.
I'm super lucky because we still give each other "the utz"... that feeling in the pit of the stomach...like on a first date or before that first time with someone special. Still. It's pretty amazing.
Hope everyone can have what we have. Make the leap as soon as you know. It's worth it.