[PhoenixAzul]

Heh, well, my boyfriend and I met through a local punk rock website. He apparently liked my posts and thought I was witty. Only two nerds can fall in love over sentence structure and word choice.

So we chatted online for about 3 months, then made a date...sort of on purpose the day my brother left for college (parents were away). When I met him, we just...clicked. I wanted to kiss him so bad that night, and we were both flirting hardcore. But being a big fat chicken, I just shook his hand that night.

A week later ,we were both going to the same show. We met up there, hung out the whole time, again flirting like CRAZY. He almost kissed me 3 different times. Finally I ended up kissing him in his car when he let me use his cell phone.

A few days later he stopped by my house to say hi on his way home from college...again, goosebumps, the whole nine.That night, however, my mom asked about him. More specifically, his age. He was 21 at the time...and I was 16. Subsequently banned from seeing him. Misery ensues.

Parents enforce ban for the better part of 4 months. We saw eachother once or twice during that time on a sneaking basis, but one time I just ran into him in downtown Pittsburgh because I decided to walk the other way to my bus stop. We kissed. Awesome.

But the phone calls were frustrating. So close yet so far. So many times he was like, "i dont know if this is good I dont know if this is what I want blah blah blah.."

Parents still hated him because of his age, refused to meet him. I finally convinced him and my dad to meet at the arts center I was going too...such a stressful night, but dad and Pat ended up getting along quite well. After that, it got better, and we were allowed to go out on group dates. Then in January, when I got my DL, we were allowed our first "alone" date.

And that's when it happened. We went to a mexican restaurant and then went to half-price books to look around (like i said, nerdy)...and he just comes up to me, puts his arms on my hips and whispers into my ear, "I'm so glad we're a couple now".

...uhhh....ok? We're a couple? But I just went for it...4 years later I think my parents love him more than me!!! And there's wee talk of "future" together...so rough starts dont always mean crash and burn ;-)