How We Met
August 2013, it was the first house party of my junior year in college. It was the typical “start of the college year” party, all my sorority sisters were there, I knew the guys who lived in the house, so I went to hang out with them. I had just recently gotten back together with an ex but he went to a different school so I was there to hang out with friends.
I went to the kitchen for a drink I quickly noticed the 6’5″ tall guy in the corner, within minutes he introduced himself as Rob and we began talking. We got lost in conversation about how we had both transferred here after shoulder(s) surgery that stopped our sports careers at our previous schools. We both had grown up in a military family, were the youngest of 3 siblings, and loved dogs. I realized as we got deeper into a conversation that I need to cut this short, I was in a relationship and needed to respect that. After that night, we went our separate ways.
Over that year, Rob thought I was cold. I literally avoided him. I would see him in the gym and walk the other direction or give him a smile and keep moving. I had never had a connection with someone so quickly that it terrified me. In October of 2014, I was *thankfully* broken up with.
I was stuck a few weeks before my last sorority semi-formal, dateless. My roommate joked and said I needed to find a hot date, so I waited to run into Rob around campus. I never did. I’m pretty sure my gym hours that week were doubled that week in hopes of seeing him – he still to this day probably doesn’t know that. So, I did what any 20 something year old would do in 2014 – I slid into his DMs. Within minutes, we had a date set up for dinner that Friday.
We went to dinner, had the best time, and he agreed to go to my sorority function. From there, we were inseparable. As much as I wanted to wait and not jump into another relationship, things just felt “right”. We started dating in December 2014 and have become travel companions, gym partners, head chef/sous chef, and pet parents to three.
How They Asked
Okay, I’m going to tell the honest truth here… Rob is HORRIBLE at surprises. I can count two times that he’s actually surprised me. So, it’s safe to say, I didn’t think he was going to be able to pull this one-off. Not that I thought I was going to know all the details but I figured it would be predictable.
I was finishing up the school year and had some days off to kill so I decided to take a random Monday off. That weekend, we were looking at the weather and noticed that Monday was going to be beautiful. Rob threw out the idea that he, too, would take the day off and we would take the dogs on a hike in Charlottesville, VA and hit a couple of breweries afterward. If you know Rob and me, this is a normal, spur of the moment idea.
Monday morning rolled around, I packed up all the things we needed. We threw the dogs in the back of my SUV and we took off towards Charlottesville. We had decided to hike Humpback Rock because it was short for the dogs, and once we hadn’t done yet.
The hike was perfect, no one on the trail with us, dogs were running free, and it was the perfect weather. We got to the top and Rob set up his GoPro (which isn’t out of the ordinary) and we took some pictures of the amazing views and dogs. The peak was a lot steeper than we had expected so I sat most of the time while hanging onto the dogs.
At one point, Rob was grabbing something out of the backpack and said my name. I turned around, and there he was, down on one knee (sliding a little backward) and asking me to marry him. I couldn’t have imagined a better way for it to happen. I had no idea, we were away from everything that distracts us, and could take at the moment together. We spent the remainder of the day unplugged from the world and brewery hopping.
