My best friend

Tonight will be exactly 7 years from when I became Mark's girlfriend.

I'll start from the beginning. I was 19 and in my freshman year at the community college. Mark was in his second year at the same commuunity college. We were 'friends' in high school. Meaning we were in the same group of friends so we were friends by association. I always thought Mark was cute. I even found an old diary entry where I talked about thinking he was so cute! (Mark doesn't believe this exists. He thinks I made it up)

My first day on campus Mark's friend had given me a shirt that was Mark's to give back to him. I was very nervous about giving this shirt back to him. (Remember high school crush?) So I gave the shirt to his best friend who I was actually friends with, not just mutual friends.

After this initial 'contact' we started hanging out on the weekends as a group of friends. And Mark and I became friends. We made each other laugh and enjoyed the same things. During this time period I began 'dating' some other people and getting caught up in my own boy dramas. But Mark was ALWAYS there. We began hanging out without our other friends. We went to the movies and Target and just hung out. Essentially we were dating.

I was in complete denial about this dating relationship the WHOLE time. My good friend would tell me ALL the time that Mark liked me and I was like 'No he doesn't. We're just really good friends.'

This went on my WHOLE freshman year. By the end of the year I considered Mark my best friend. He was usuallly the first person I talked to that day and the last person I talked to before I went to bed at night. We would always joke that we were counterparts. The male and female form of each other. I was starting to realize I LOVED Mark. I was like 'WHAT! I can't love Mark like that, He's my best friend!!!' So I continued to 'date' other people.

But during the summer Mark and I were hanging out every chance we got and talking multiple times a day on the phone. And then one night we had our first kiss! It was after watching Karate Kid and he'll tell it differently but I totally kissed him! Don't let him try to say he kissed me! He didn't!

You would think that this would be the moment we made it official. It wasn't. I totally freaked out! We had an official date and when we came back I mumbled something about not being ready for a boyfriend and left him standing there in shock. What was really going on in my head was 'I love this boy!' I knew that once we started dating it was official we would get married! I seriously knew. That scared the crap out of me. I had never had a real boyfriend and didn't know if I wanted the first one I had to be the guy I married. You ask if I really knew that this was the man I was going to marry? Trust me I knew. We had spent many nights together and I couldn't picture my life with out Mark. I was so scared that if we didn't work out dating that I would be without Mark and I didn't want that. I would rather be just friends with him than date and break up and not have him at all.

Well all week was torture. He told me he wasn't going to talk to me and needed some time apart. We didn't see each other all week but we did talk on the phone. At the end of the week we finally got together to talk about what was going on. By the end of the night we decided to start dating. This went on for the whole month. I was terrified to call him my boyfriend. He wanted me to be his girlfriend all month long but I just couldn't do it.

Finally on Aug. 24, 2002, I offically told him I would be his girlfriend (And I told him I loved him! :) ) By January he was telling me he was going to marry me. We never looked back. It took us what felt like an eternity to get together and was very obvious that that's where our relationship was going.

Seven years later Mark is still my best friend. Sometimes I want to stab him with a fork but I would NEVER trade him in.