Dating/Marriage

[Jennifer Piersol]

Well, I thought I'd put in my two cents...

I met my husband when I was in college... I was a freshman at the 
University of Arizona - he was a senior at Purdue.  So over a 2000 
mile distance, there are only a few ways to meet each other: a visit 
to an old friend, "pen pals", or (in this age of information) the 
internet.  Yes, we met over the net.  It was before the web was 
widespread - this was over an "old fashioned" text-based chat - sort 
of like IRC, but geared more toward a specific college audience.. and 
based in Purdue (havens).  Well, we were friends from the start... I 
would talk to him about this psycho guy I had (briefly) dated and was 
now stalking me, he would see him online and get into arguments with 
him.  It was a fun friendship (although a little scary at times, 
because he had a bit of a temper, and sometimes I'd worry about what 
his fights with this stalker guy would do to MY safety).  Well, my 
family had a tradition of going to Maryland to visit my half-siblings 
every even-numbered year.  And '94 was an even-numbered year, of 
course... so we had made plans to be out there in mid-July.  Well, 
Chris got an internship at the National Institutes of Health in 
Bethesda, MD for that summer... so we arranged a meeting at the 
Smithsonian (with my sister as my chaperone).  We had agreed that we 
wouldn't pretend that we were anything more than friends until after 
we met - we needed to see if there was a "spark" in person, first... 
and boy, was there ever a spark!  Anyway, he went to UCLA for grad 
school, I finished my undergrad degree in another 2.5 years (I didn't 
want to stick around Tucson for very much longer - I had some issues 
with my aunt down there), and between the two of us, we lined the 
pockets of the Southwest Airlines shareholders... ;)  We got engaged 
Christmas '95, were married April '97, and we had our daughter in 
March of '99.  I was 21 (almost 22) when I got married - he was 25.

There *are* some times when I wish I'd done more "stuff" before I'd 
committed myself to marriage... and there are times when Chris and I 
look at each other after seeing a commercial for a cruise or a 
vacation in Europe - and know that it's out of the question for us 
until Ginger (and any siblings) get much older... but for the most 
part, we really like being married.  Our relationship has tended 
towards the "joking, fun, hanging out" type instead of the "overtly 
romantic" type - and as you may remember from my Mother's Day / 
Birthday rant, he's not the best or most thoughtful present 
picker-outer... he gave me a waffle-maker for Christmas once - we now 
call it the "Homer ball" (after the bowling ball Homer got for Marge 
that he always intended to use himself in the "Simpsons").  But I 
can't imagine anyone else I'd rather spend my life with, and he feels 
the same way (luckily).

Sorry this was so long, but you guys are lucky - I actually cut out a 
LOT of other details about our relationship... 

Jen (who is on Summer Vacation with her hubby, and is MUCH more 
relaxed!)