Two dorky redheads fell in love

Thomas and I connected on a dating website, where he found me and sent the first message. He was kind and respectful. We sent probably five or six messages back and forth, but my free one-week trial to the website was ending in a few days. I let Thomas know that, and he invited me stay in touch but I wasn't sure. He was in Dallas, and I was in St. Louis where I had four more years of graduate school to finish. After a few days, I decided to send him a Facebook request (of course after creeping on his profile). Right off the bat, I told him I was leery of the distance. He said that was also on his mind, but if we got that far in our conversations, he would come to me. This gave me the assurance that it was okay to start getting emotionally invested. We messaged on Facebook for three days and had great conversation. I was amazed at how much we had in common and I was definitely becoming interested in him. In a moment of bravery, I messaged him: "Good morning. So I'm going to give you something, do with it as you please. Here's my cell number: ...". He texted me immediately! We texted so much for about a week, and I was already falling hard for Thomas. I had a difficult time staying asleep because I knew he was going to text me in the morning; I fell behind on my school responsibilities and had a difficult time eating too. I was truly twitterpated. After a week of texting we scheduled our first phone call. Within days of that first call, I had a strong confidence that Thomas was the one. As a psychology/neuroscience student, I knew the effects that infatuation can have on the brain and logical thinking, so I was trying to be cautious. However, despite this desire to not be driven solely by infatuation, I do think God gave me the assurance to move forward with Thomas very early on. Before we even Facetimed, I 'knew' that he would likely be my future husband. ...To be continued...

On our second or third phone call, Thomas asked if he could fly up to St. Louis to take me on a date. I agreed, on the condition that he plan the whole thing, which he did. At the beginning of February 2017, Thomas flew from Dallas to St. Louis to meet me, and I picked him up at the airport. It was incredibly nerve-racking, and I barely slept the night before. It was nerve-racking because I was about to find out if the impression I got of this young man over messaging, the phone, and FaceTime was accurate or if he had me fooled. During the course of our first date, Thomas showed himself to be even better than I had imagined. I was absolutely smitten.

Thomas and I began dating long distance, but we managed to see each other every other weekend. He’d fly to STL, fly me down to Dallas, or we’d meet in Oklahoma. The days between our visits were very long. After a couple of months of dating, it dawned on me that when Thomas said he would come to STL if we got to that point (our first Facebook messages), he may have meant something different than what I interpreted. I thought he meant that he was willing to move states for a relationship, but he just meant that he’d come to STL to take me on a date. Had I understood this correctly, I would have never agreed to dating him because I was NOT interested in a long distance relationship. However, I had already fallen for Thomas at this point, and I wasn’t going to let this wonderful man go. He had a job in Texas, and I had school in STL. But we had found something special in each other, so we moved forward in faith that if God wanted us to be together, He’d make a way for us to be in the same city. In the summer of 2017, I was able spend a few months in Dallas with Thomas (and his wonderful family); we began to envision what a life together would be like and we saw that we really did work as a couple. By the end of the summer, Thomas was confident enough is where we were headed that he agreed to move up to STL for me so we could be together. We began praying for God to provide an opportunity for him to transfer with his job to STL. In January 2018, Thomas came to STL for a weekend, when he proposed to me on a Saturday, then interviewed for and accepted a position in STL the following Monday. After a whirlwind year of dating, questioning, and long phone calls, we were finally going to live in the same city AND WERE GETTING MARRIED!!!