As fate would have it, Tammy and I both ended up at UCI.  Not only this but we ended up in the same dorm, Isla.  We would live with the same 80-something people, on the same 3 floors, and have the same R.A. for a year, but wouldn’t know a thing (besides our names) about each other until about halfway through the year.

Before the actual hanging out/meeting of each other, I knew Tammy as the shy filipino girl who always hung around Elfren.

Tammy knew me as the big, scary white guy who knew her nickname before she introduced herself and who always called Elfren to ask “ridiculous” questions (they weren’t really).

As you can see, this did not necessarily set up a very friendly atmosphere for meeting one another and actually getting along.  Nevertheless, it happened.  This finally occurred on February 8th, 2008 over a poo book.  Tammy and I had the first smallest connection when we visited Urban Outfitters at the Spectrum with some friends.  At one point we were left alone as the others went to shop and of course someone had to say something, this something happened to be a converstion on a book about different types of poo.

After this day, there was nothing else to do but become friends.  So, of course we did.  We discovered we had a lot more in common than originally thought (i.e. Jason Mraz, Juno, movies, music…all that stuff), so we spent our days planning ridiculous things and sharing whatever we could.  All this was very innocent, I didn’t know she liked me, she didn’t know I liked her.  Others were able to recognize this, we often were the center of giggles, but we were “in our own little world.”  We began going on several adventures, saw our first movie together (Charlie Bartlett), I kept her warm on walks we used to take together, we had danced a slow dance together, and we even took the bus to Disneyland, still oblivious to anything related to relationships.

One Saturday, during finals week of our freshman year, I knew I had to actually do something.  My friend Anup had psyched me out telling me that he was 110 percent sure she liked me, he was right of course, but I was still skeptical.  This night, we had been left alone to find our own food having missed out on the pizza our hall had ordered.  We headed to the store and before we knew it we were sitting on a stage in the middle of Aldrich Park eating ice cream.  This wasn’t really out of the ordinary for one of our adventures.  I had the whole thing planned out in my mind, I would ask her on stage (don’t worry, no one was around) and she would say yes, and we would walk back as a couple, wouldn’t that have been an amazing story.  But didn’t work out, she decided to bring up her whole story of wanting to be single, etc… needless to say this moment wasn’t right, so I waited til later that night.

Later that night meant after watching Igby Goes Down in my room.  We sat in silence a few minutes as I got more texts urging me on and she getting texts to just let me talk, we have a bit nosy friends.  I took the leap, told her…she basically rejected me.  She told me she liked me back but that it was too late in the year and that there was not enough time, I walked her back to her room where all our friends were…awkward.  They knew I had said something but didn’t know the outcome, so they left promptly, but of course didn’t forget to leave a suggestive song on about kissing, a bit embarrassing you could say.  Anyway, I said goodnight and went back to my room.  But that wasn’t the end (obviously)…

As I was laying in bed debating whether I should convince her to change her mind, there was a knock on the door.  I looked out and she was standing there, she came in and told me how her friends had basically told her how stupid she had been.  As we sat there trying to decide what to do, I asked her, “Will you be my girlfriend?”  She said yes, and that was that.  We were an official couple and lost as ever, we sat on my bed, with plenty of room between us and were confused.  After asking advice from our friends, and not getting any sort of helpful answer, we went for a walk.  We grasped hands for the first time and knew it felt right, she looked up at me and said in the cutest way possible “Hi.”  I will never forget that moment, something about it just made me realize that this girl was mine, and I was hers.

Since that day, June 8, 2008 we have only grown more together, we have ridden of the awkwardness and know what it means to be in a relationship.   Now, I can say that she is my love and my best friend.