The Date
This February my wife and I will celebrate being together for 50 years. Our first date was n February of 1973 and we have been married for over 40 years.
I knew that I was in Love with her from that very first night together and I pursued her with a passion. She is nearly two years youngr than me and was two grades behind me in school. Nonetheless, I knew she was the one.
After that first night I wanted to be with her as much as I possibly could. Not only would we see each other nearly every single day at school (she was a freshman and I was a junior) but I asked her to every dance and other school activity for the rest of the school year.
I knew that there were several other boys that liked her and wanted to go out with her. Even though we were dating and she was going to all of these dances and such with me, there was another boy that she liked. He was in her class and they had been friends for a couple of years. They had even been a couple during junior high.
She seemed to be totally into me when we were together but I was a bit of a wild child and some of my activities made it difficult for her when it came to getting permission from her parent to continue going out with me. I drank quite a bit, got in trouble in school and outside of school fairly often, I got an ear pierced one night and other kind of crazy behavior.
I would find out a number of things about what all was going on during those early dating years when I read her diary very recently. I learned that when I had asked her to that first dance there was another boy that had already asked her. This other boy was also the first boy to kiss her and she has always made me think I was the first boy she kissed.
In fact, the first night that we were together and kissed for the first time, I was not even the first boy she had kissed that night. She had been riding around town with a couple of my classmates and had been making out with one of them. She wrote in her diary that they kissed three times.
Then after we had been to a few dances together I had asked her to the next dance and she said yes. What I did not know was that the other boy she really liked was planning to ask her to that dance but did not when he found out I already had.
She wrote in her diary bout learning that Jim was going to ask her and did not when he learned I had and she was disappointed. She had written a couple of weeks earlier that one of the other girls in her class had told her that Jim liked her again and she was very happy and hopeful.
I did not know about what was going on behind the scenes but I did know these other boys wanted her so I kept pursuing. We soon became known as a couple and most of the boys backed off. That first summer I would go to her house as often as I could and by the time school started in the fall I felt we were even closer.
That was my Senior year and it was the best year of high school for me because she was with me. We were almost inseparable throughout that school year. Then the following summer I saw nearly every single day. I am certain there was a path worn between my house and hers even though we lived in different towns about 7 miles apart.
I had graduated in May and was planning to go electronic school in the fall but throughout the summer we just spent as much time together as possible. My school did not start until a couple of weeks after her junior year of school started, and so I even went to school and spent almost the whole day with her, going to her classes and everything.
It was painful when we had to say good bye when I had to dtart school. She came with me to get moved into my first apartment and then rode back home with my parents. For that first month I came home every weekend to see her and spent almost the entire weekend with her each time.
We had been talking about things we wanted to do and what I wanted to buy her for Christmas that year and it was decided that I needed to stay a weekend in the city to work. When I left for that 12 day period that we would not see each other it was a tearful parting.
We wrote to each other at least once each week and sometimes twice. I would even write short notes to her during the week and give them to her on the weekend. This week we had planned that I would call her on that first Wednesday night.
When Wednesday came I had mailed my etter to her that day and looked forward to calling her that night. I had not gotten any letter from her yet that week. The call, however, did not go as I thought it would.
At first it was normal with each of us telling the other how much we loved each other and missed each other and then started into what had been happening so far that week. When we got to that part of the conversation things took a turn.
She told me that on Monday of that week Jim had asked her out on a date for the coming Saturday night when I would not be home. I am pretty certain I was speechless but not really surprised I had told her that when I was gone he would go after her whenever he could and that proved correct.
Get Rubed’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
She tld me that she was really torn, she was not certain if she should go with him or even if she wanted to go with him. But then, in the next moment she is telling me of the possible places they had been talking about going to.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, and thus looking back at it I should have understood things better. Since she had not just said no to him right away, it was obvious that she wanted to go and really the only hesitation was if she should because of our relationship.
After talking about a half an hour about it I must have given in. She would write in her diary that night that we did talk a long time and that I told her to go out with Jim. Not quite what I think I would have said but it made no difference, the decision was made.
She sent her letter the next day after the phone call and wrote pretty much what we had talked about on the phone, still syaing she was torn about if she should go or if she even wanted to. Then in the next sentence she told me where they had decided to go. She wrote that she loved me and she would be a good girl!
We did not talk again before I came home the following Friday and in between I got one letter from her and in it she said that the date with Jim was not that great and she would tell me about it when I got home on Friday night.
I remember going directly to her house that Friday and what I remember her telling me about the date was that they had gone to see a movie at the same theater that she and went to all of the time, then they got something to eat at the Pizza Hut just as we often did and then he took her home. She added that he had kissed her.
Looking back I have lways thought it kind of strange that she said it that way, that he had kissed her. She even wrote it that way in her diary. I am very certain I was upset and we argued, but as usual we worked through it and the rest as they say is history.
We got engaged, married, and had kids and now grandkids. We have had the normal spats that married folks have over the years but nothing we could not workout.
It was when we were getting ready for a move to a new house, just the two of us, when I cam across her diary. I had always been curious about wnating to know what she wrote about me and our relationship, so when I first picked it up I decided to just read about a couple of the key times, like our first date, etc.
Of course, being very curious I started reading more. It was then when I learned about how much flirting she and Jim had been doing, not only after I graduated but even while I was around in that first year and a half or so while dating her.
This led me to wonder what she had written about “the date.” I cross-referenced the dates from her letters to me which I still have and have read many times, and found the specific timeframe. On that Monday after I had gone back to the city she wrote, “Jim asked me out.” Then on Tuesday night she wrote, “Not sure if I should go with hi or if I want to.”
The Wednesday night entry came after our call and which I eluded to above, where she wrote that I told her to go with Jim. The entries on Thursday and Friday were just about things at home or schol those days. Then came Saturday, the day of the date.
The diary entry after the date stated that I did not come home and so she went out with Jim, she wrote what movie they went to and then to the Pizza Hut and then stated that they went parking. That one word jumped out at me, parking. She hed never said that to me and even years ago when she admitted that they had sort of felt each other up, she still did not say they went parking.
As I read that in her diary it made me think about our activites at that time and so I looked back prior to the date with Jim to see what she had written about us. Two weeks prior to her date with Jim she wrote about us going out and it was nearly identical, going to a movie at the same theater, going to the Pizza Hut and then going parking. She did add one detail about us, saying that that particular night was the first time that we had both gotten completely naked together.
When I read that my mind started to reel. Knowing how much she liked him at the time and what she and I had been normally doing together led me to wonder if they had done more than she has told me. I looked to see what she had written about when I came home that following weekend and there were no entries for about a three week period from the Monday after the date until nearly three weeks later.
One night she and I were having a general conversation and the topic turned to some event that tok place years ago and that led us to start talking about different things that took place during our dating years. I then asked her if she remembered that I had stayed in the city a couple of times to work. She indicated that she vaguely remembers that.
I continued by asking if she remembers what she did that first weekend that I did not come home. She looked at me blankly and shook her head and said she did not remember at all. The details were still frssh in my mind even thought it had been months since I read it in her diary.
I stated that she had gone on a date with Jim, went to a movie, went to the Pizza Hut and then went parking! This was the first time “parking” was ever mentioned. She looked at me with kind of a surprised look on her face and said, “Yeah and the Jim made me mad and I broke a door or window handle on his car and I yelled at him to take me home.”
She then walked away from me. when I followed she was very upset at me for bringing up that date. She said it was over 45 years ago and after all, she married me and not him. That was the end of that conversation.
To this day I still do not know what those two did while parking after that date. Yes, she married me and yes we have had a good life together but that one little “date” still causes me concern.
