Jared's Story

I got home off my mission November 20th and felt like I needed to do something with myself so I went out looking for a job. I drove past Olive Garden and saw a sign that said "Now Hiring". I thought it would be fun to be a server so I applied for the job and two days later I started training. I was the typical dorky return missionary and I checked out the ring finger of every girl there for two things, a wedding ring and a CTR ring. I started talking to a few of the girls there, but not Cami. I thought she was too beautiful to ever talk to a dork like me. So I avoided talking to her. I was interested in her, but I was too scared to talk to her. Then one night a friend asked me to come with him to a concert so I did. We went to go pick Cami up and I thought I'd break the ice by scaring when she came out of her house. Well, I was facing the wrong door and she walked up behind me and said, "What are you doing?" That was awkward. Well we went to the concert and on the way home we were talking and they found out I didn't really have any friends to hang out with. Cami was nice enough to feel sorry for me so she asked for my number and said she would invite me to do things the the OG crew. We started hanging out a lot and I always had a crush on her, I was just scared to let her know. Well one night my friend asked me if I liked her and I said I kinda did. He told me he thought she liked me too. I thought, "She would never like me. She is too serious and I'm a goof ball." A little while later the same friend and I went to a comedy club and after we stayed out on the sidewalk talking about girls. He convinced me that I had a chance with Cami and I should at least try. So I started trying. Cami was a hard one to read and I would like her a lot and try and do anything to make up an excuse to be with her, but she just didn't seem as interested as I did in a relationship. So I would get down and think she would never like me and I would lose interest in her. Then she would do something that gave me hope, but the same process was repeated over and over again. I'm sure we were both frustrated with each other because we showed interest in different ways and I just never understood her intentions. I wrote my mission president a letter and told him what I was up to and that there was a girl I really liked from work. He wrote me back and told me that his son had found his wife while working at Olive Garden and that could have the same luck. A group of friends decided to go on a cruise together and I was at the point where I had given up hope in ever dating her. But, I did have the thought, "The cruise is my last resort. If I can get her to like me it would definitely be on a cruise. If she doesn't like me by the end of the cruise, I quit." I was still a little bitter at the start of the cruise that she wouldn't flirt with me like I wanted her to. About three or four days into the cruise I started having those butterfly feelings for her again. I tried to resist flirting with her because I still thought she wouldn't ever like me. Well, my feelings won and we both started flirting with each other and started spending a lot of time together on the cruise. By the end I felt like I had won the lottery because I knew she really liked me. I thought to myself, "It's about time! I had to come all the way to the Caribbean to get her to like me." Well one thing led to another and we still had one more up and down and back up time after the cruise but we finally ended up dating seriously. Now I'm madly in love with her and can't wait to spend eternity with her by my side. THE END