The Story of Us, Part 2. A First Date.

[For the beginning of our story, you can check out Part 1.] 

I spent a good chunk of that summer traveling throughout Eastern Europe, but in August, I was back in Utah and getting ready to start a new job in Salt Lake City. Sam was in Utah for a month, getting ready to move to D.C.

When I returned to Utah, Sam and I texted each other, and at some point, decided to meet up and watch the Olympics. It was very informal, and I wasn’t sure if it was a date or not. As the afternoon wore on, I figured it was not (which took away some of the pressure), and so we just watched the Olympics, ate British chocolates, reminisced about England, and talked about what we were looking forward to in our upcoming moves.

Sam moved to D.C., but we kept up a texting correspondence via Facebook Messenger. When I look back at some of those conversations, I see just how much we were texting each other, and I see how the interest in each other started to grow. I remember when we first started Skyping, how those interactions made our budding relationship start to feel more real. I also remember going to bed one night after Skyping with Sam and thinking, “If he were in Salt Lake, or if I were in D.C. right now, we’d probably be going on dates.” I also remember thinking directly afterwards, “But, we’re not in the same place, and if anything, I’m really enjoying getting to know him. We’re in a really good place in our friendship.”

I think that it was only a couple of days afterwards that Sam “officially” asked me out on a date.

It was in October, and he asked me out over Skype. I remember that we were talking, and then Sam said, “I’d like to ask you out.” 

When he said that, I thought that he meant on a Skype date. Maybe we’d order pad thai and watch a movie together, 2,000-miles away? But then he said, “I want to fly out to Salt Lake to take you on a date, and I was wondering what you’d think about that.”

I was pleasantly surprised. “Thank you!” I said, “That’s really kind of you. I’d really like that.”

Sam has told me that when I said, “that’s really kind of you,” he was thinking, “this is not kind of me. I really just want to take you on a date!” 

But that is what came out of my mouth at the time, because I was surprised, because I was flattered, because I didn’t know what else to say, because I knew that the flight to Salt Lake would be expensive, but I really would like to go out with him.

We made plans for Sam to come out to Salt Lake in November, the week before Thanksgiving. I was returning to Oxford in early November for my graduation, and the mid-November date worked out well for both of our schedules.

The prospect of Sam flying out to Salt Lake to take me on a date was exciting to me. Mentally, I tried to remain calm about it—I had been burned in many other relationships and I was not eager to get my hopes up, only to have them come crashing down again—but my actions proved otherwise. I told my roommates about Sam’s upcoming trip; I mentioned it to my co-workers; and I meticulously planned out the outfits I would wear. Sam would be in Salt Lake for about two-and-a-half days, and I knew that the days would practically run into one, long marathon date—dates I had scoffed at while at BYU, but which now seemed necessary in our case.

I also felt nervous. I didn’t think Sam meant to put a lot of pressure on this date, but the stakes felt high. I didn’t know what he expected, and I was nervous that he might want to rush into a relationship too quickly.

When Sam got to Salt Lake, he headed for Temple Square. At the time, I was interning with Latter-day Saint Church Magazines, so I worked in the Church Office Building, which is on the same complex as the Salt Lake Temple and Tabernacle. We had agreed to meet first during my lunch break, and then we’d meet up for dinner in Provo. I met him outside of the Church Office Building and gave him a big hug. I was still feeling nervous, but I was excited to see him. 

We had decided on some of our mega-date-weekend activities beforehand, and the first one was to visit an art exhibit in Raphael Plescia's home. It was, honestly, one of the stranger things I have ever done. Raphael and his artwork were very eccentric—the artwork was Mormon-adjacent, but his house felt like the house of a hoarder, full of knick-knacks, tools, and such. We both left the house and agreed that it felt like a weird mission experience—you meet so many different sorts of people on a mission, and going into that man’s house felt like visiting the home of a more eccentric person on the mission—someone who is all-too-eager to tell you everything about their life story, philosophy, love affairs, and past sins, just because you have a black name-tag above your heart.

The rest of the weekend, though, was not strange at all. We had a lovely time together—eating at restaurants, hiking in the canyons, going to bookshops, visiting Gilgal Gardens (which was another strange art exhibit, but not nearly as strange as the man’s house, so it felt almost normal), and just talking. It was, indeed, a marathon-date, and after awhile, I grew exhausted. Dating—especially in its early stages—can be performative, even if you are trying to be true to yourself, and it is tiring trying to be interesting all of the time. Besides, I was also working on PhD applications that November, and I was trying to keep myself to a deadline of submitting my applications before Thanksgiving.

As Saturday evening approached, I told Sam that I was getting tired and that I was getting anxious about working on my applications. But I was also mindful that he had flown all of the way from D.C. to Utah to see me, and so I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to do or anywhere else he wanted to go before I turned in for the evening. Sam asked if we could go to Temple Square.

Internally, I started to freak out a bit. Temple Square is so loaded with symbolism—not only religiously, but culturally. The Salt Lake Temple is the most popular temple for weddings, and thousands of couples have gotten engaged at Temple Square—especially around Christmas time, with all of the lights. The lights had just gone up at Temple Square and, still not knowing Sam well, I was cautious.

Still, I agreed, and off to Temple Square we went.

It turns out that Sam just wanted to go to Temple Square because he wanted a place to talk—and that was not going to happen at my apartment since my roommates had their own weekend plans at our apartment. He also wanted to see the lights, since this would be the only chance he got to see them that year. We sat down on a bench on Temple Square—not too close to the Temple, and far from the gathering crowds.  

I don’t remember who broke the silence, him or me (I think it was him), but at some point, someone mentioned, “I’ve really enjoyed this weekend and getting to know you better, but now—what do we do?”

“I had a really good time this weekend, too,” I said. “But yes, I am wondering the same thing. You can be completely honest with me with what you’re thinking. I won’t be offended.”

Since I had had so many negative “define-the-relationships” before, I was bracing myself for bad news—I thought that maybe Sam was actually more interested in other people in DC or something like that.

He surprised me with his next statement.

“Honestly? I’m thinking that I would really like to kiss you right now,” he said.

I started laughing—not at him, but just because I was nervous, and I said so.

“But obviously,” he said, “We don’t have to. But you did tell me to say what was on my mind, and that’s what’s on my mind.”

I contemplated it for a few seconds, but I was too nervous. “I’m not ready yet,” I said. “I really do like you, but I am just not sure yet about where we should take this. It would be so much easier if I were in D.C.—”

“—and you’re in a state of flux with PhD programs—”

“—and I don’t think we should necessarily start anything or commit to anything. Just keep talking, I guess. And Skyping. And if things continue to go well, I could come visit you in D.C.”

Sam agreed. 

We talked for awhile about some of our past relationships—what had gone well, what had not gone well, and what our ideals were in a relationship. I was shocked by how easy it was to talk to him, even after I had effectively just put our relationship in a limbo state. Usually, guys had not been this normal or kind after I had told them I wasn’t ready to date them (which, had been a sign that I probably shouldn’t date them after all). But Sam was so normal and good to me. A kind man who respected boundaries? What kind of magic was this?

He suggested we get ice cream, and we left the bench on Temple Square to walk across the street to an ice cream store nearby. On the way there, I apologized that I couldn’t give a clear answer about what we should do in our relationship. “I’ve put you in a state of limbo, and that’s hard,” I said. “But it’s not that I don’t like you. I do. I’m just not sure where to go.”

Sam looked at me and said something that effectively sealed his fate, although neither of us truly knew that yet. “Megan,” he said, “you don’t owe me anything. I came out to Utah with the purpose of getting to know you better, and I have. I have had a great weekend with you. And you have no obligation of showing me any physical affection—you don’t have to ‘pay me back’ for coming to Salt Lake. You don’t owe me a hand hold, a kiss, nothing. I have too many friends and acquaintances who think that girls owe them something for dates, and I do not think that way. And in a culture and society which too often does not respect women’s agency, just know that I respect yours.”

His response floored me. Dang it, I thought, NOW I want to kiss you.

We got ice cream, I brought Sam home to his friend’s house, Sam went out to see a movie, and I called my friend Em and fretted that I had done something wrong. She reassured me that I hadn’t. But in those early stages of a relationship, everything feels so fragile. It is easier said than done to just trust in the process and the grace of love.

Whenever I tell the story about how Sam and I started dating, the story of that night on Temple Square is particularly meaningful to me. Not because of its location, but because how it revealed to me who Sam was. Sometimes I finish with that story and just let it speak for itself, as though I realized in that moment that I wanted to marry Sam, and that everything was crystal clear from that point on. It wasn’t. But that conversation was a turning point in our burgeoning relationship, and it opened the door for good things to come.

[Continued in Part 3]