How I met Chris

Three years ago today, I met my husband. Here is the story of how it happened.

It was the big BYU-FSU football game. Up until this point I never understood football, nor did I care to. But I was a freshman in college and in order to fit in and meet people, you had to have school spirit. That meant going to football games. My best friend, Alena, and I had an ongoing plan to go watch all the away football games together wherever they were being broadcast on campus. It was cheaper than buying tickets to the game, and we could still go and hang out with the people who would be at a game and pretend to like football.

This particular game was in Florida, and it was being broadcast in the student center ballroom. Wanting to be involved, I signed up to be a part of a BYUSA school spirit type event where I'd get a free t-shirt and help pass out free food or something to that effect. I got up early and put on make-up and made sure I looked in tip-top shape in case I met anyone cute and trudged my way across campus so I wouldn't be late. To this day, I have no idea whether I got the date wrong or just got lost on campus since I was new, but either way I never found the BYUSA event.

Feeling defeated, I went back to my dorm room and fell back to sleep. I woke up several hours later to my phone vibrating on the pillow next to my head.
"Hello?" I said groggily, not bothering to open up my eyes.
"Hey, do you still want to go watch the game in the Wilk (short for the Wilkinson Student Center)?" Came Alena's familiar voice.
"Uhh...well..blargedy grumbledy, blah de blah de blah," was my response as I explained my frustrated morning walking around campus in the heat and never finding what I was looking for.

After some convincing on Alena's part, I met her outside, in between our respective dorm buildings at Helaman Halls and we walked together to the Wilk. After my defeated morning and little nap, I wasn't looking as great as I did this morning. But I was pretty positive that nothing exciting was going to happen watching the football game. Alena, like me, had no real desire to watch football or understand football. But we were both drawn to allure of being a part of something bigger.

As we entered the main doors to the Wilk, we could hear cheering down the hall.

"That must be where the ballroom is," Alena said, and I followed her past the Cougareat (the food court) to the source of the noise. It appears I was right about nothing exciting happening. The already gigantic ballroom had open walls and was overflowing with people. Every little nook and cranny was filled and people were even standing out into the hallway. We walked in a little but determined that not only could we not see the game, there weren't even any interesting looking people (let's be frank, I mean hot guys) to stand near and get to know.

Well this day just keeps getting better and better, I thought to myself.
"Well, I haven't eaten. Let's go get lunch," Alena said and led me towards Subway.

To add to the annoyances of the day, the line for Subway was longer than usual since it was one of the only food establishments open. We got in line and started talking about this and that when behind me I heard,

"Have you been waiting long?"

The source of the voice was a tall (lets face it, everyone is tall to me) guy wearing a plaid, short sleeve, button up shirt and jeans. And he was pretty cute. I didn't think too much of it, but that didn't stop me from getting a little flustered.

"Oh uhh..well no. Well..uhm..I'm not sure. To be honest, I don't really have a good judge of time," I answered, "Or space," I felt the need to add for some reason.

The cute guy smiled, "So parking must be an issue for you."

"Actually no," I replied, "I just have my little Honda Civic, so it's not too bad."

"Oh I used to have a Honda, but I sold it. Now I just have my motorcycle."

Suddenly my head is spinning and I can't think straight. A motorcycle. This guy has a MOTORCYCLE!
**Okay side note: Something you have to know about me is that by this point I had become rather obsessed with motorcycles. When my dad took me out to BYU to show me the campus and shared his narrative on where he used to take his motorcycle and all the girls he took for rides my obsession began. I just imagined myself looking like a Bad A on my own bike and being basically the hottest chick ever. The obsession continued to grow when I got to school and realized how many guys drove motorcycles around and how likely it would be that I could ride with one of them. And now I'm actually meeting a guy with a motorcycle. This was my chance. Okay back to the story.**

And this is what I replied, verbatim as I stuck my hand out, "Hi, my name is Jocelyn. We should be friends."

He shook my hand, being a gentleman and not making fun of me for sticking my hand out and we started talking. This is where it gets a little embarrassing. I have NO IDEA what we talked about. Alena was the one buying a sandwich and I was just following her in line. So I talked to this cute guy while he ordered his sandwich. I vaguely remember him telling me something about his mission but all I was thinking while I was hopelessly flirting was, he has a motorcycle! I wonder what it looks like. I wonder if he'd teach me to drive it. I bet he looks hot on a motorcycle. I bet I'd look hot on a motorcycle.

By the time both he and Alena got their sandwiches, he asked for my number. I gave it to him but I was still totally in motorcycle la-la land.

"Why don't you text me and then I'll have your number," I suggested.
"Oh, I don't have texting." Um WHAT?? "I'll just call you instead."

Then there was a brief exchange about my ringtone being Disturbed's Down with the Sickness and how a guy who works with his dad has the same ringtone and then he walked away.

After he left I looked down at my phone and went to add his number to my contacts. Then I realized,
"Crap! I don't remember his name! Do you remember his name?"
"I think he said it was Chris," Alena suggested.
"Crap, but what if it's not...."

And that's the story of how I met the boy who for the next couple weeks I referred to as, Motorcycle Boy.

Stay tuned to find out how I finally learned his name, awkwardly, halfway through our first date.