Labeling two fifteen year olds who are new to the idea of dating the “example couple” has all kinds of potential for disaster. Luckily in our case, that label scared us more than puffed us up with pride, so the disastrous potential was (I think) thwarted. Knowing that we were being watched led us to avoid some of the pitfalls of typical couples and caused us to take seriously some pretty high standards.
We didn’t want to be one of those couples who exclusively spent time with each other and virtually lost contact with all our other friends, so we continued to hang out with our entire group of friends from church. We also continued to develop friendships with peers at our schools.
In the area of a physical relationship, we took it extremely slow. We had friends who rushed into a relationship physically and ended up getting hurt. We knew we didn’t want that. By November of that first year, we began talking about exactly what kind of boundaries we wanted to hold ourselves to in this area. Both of us concluded that the physical relationship has the natural tendency to accelerate over time and we wanted to be careful. We knew we wanted our relationship to last for a long time so we concluded it would be wise to take it slow and not rush into things.
Don’t get me wrong, the desire for a physical relationship was there, but it was approached with a lot of trepidation knowing that we were not immune to making mistakes. We were willing to be patient. In that first year of our dating relationship, our physical relationship never bloomed past a few hugs here and there and a couple times holding hands.
What did bloom, however, was a deep and genuine friendship. Because we did not spend our time together in continuous make-out sessions, we spent a great deal of time simply enjoying and getting to know each other. We talked a lot. We laughed a lot. We genuinely enjoyed being near each other.
We also found creative ways to show affection for one another. Joey was much better at this sort of thing than me. He would notice and take note of things about me. For instance, he noticed I liked to eat the red Starbursts out of a package of candies. I would be minding my own business somewhere and he would walk by and hold out his hand to show me a single red Starburst. I knew what it meant. He knew what it meant. He didn’t have to say a word. Still to this day, the first thing we do when opening a package of Starburst, M & M’s or Skittles is dig out a red one and hand it to the other person. It’s our little secret way of showing we care. (Now it’s not very secret anymore, I guess.)
We became rather creative gift-givers also. There was one time Joey gave me a giant poster board size card for a gift. I opened it up and found he had written in super tiny size font on the entire inside cover of the poster size card. It took a while to read, but I read it - over and over.
For Joey’s sixteenth birthday, I put together a “driving survival kit.” I filled a shoebox full of items I deemed necessary for driving survival. Things like a cassette tape of our favorite artist (so we could enjoy listening to it together), his favorite gum (to always have fresh breath), a mirror for his visor (so I could check my makeup when he started taking me on dates), Starbursts (of course) and an assortment of other random items. Each item had a sticky note explaining why that particular gift was “essential” for a new driver. Some were silly items. Some were practical items. But all the items showed I cared and I noticed the little things about him. I took the time to do more than simply buy a gift.
This particular gift turned out to be a bit of an awkward gift though because by the time I gave it to him, he had already informed me that it would be another three months before he could start driving. I think it had something to do with state law requiring a permit for a minimum of a few months before a person could qualify to take the driver’s test. Then there was the issue of his car. He had a 1963 Chevy Nova that needed a lot of work just to make it run in addition to a paint job and finding enough money for the insurance. All technicalities. I gave him the survival kit anyway. No doubt, we enjoyed laughing about it while eating our red Starbursts.
