Meet The Thompsons: The Excuse

Okay – heart to heart people – first of all I am sorry this next part is soooo long. But I plan on turning this section into a little blog book of memories for Mr. Thompson and I. So really I am not sorry. Also, you are going to learn with this post that 1. I am afraid of emotions and feelings and 2. I use excuses and other things to hide behind those emotions. The truth was I had NO plans to get married. So I went on dates but avoided ALL serious relationships like the plague. My excuses were always “you’re going on a mission- you need to focus on that” “I am going to BYU – it wouldn’t work out” “you dated my friend – I don’t want to hurt her feelings” and my last excuse “I am going to China – it would be unfair to make you wait and it wouldn’t work out.” Notice I always made it about someone else. Instead I should have said. Listen, dating leads to marriage and I am TERRIFIED of marriage. Because you can’t control what your spouse does. One day, he can just say, “Marriage is too hard. I don’t want to do this anymore.” Bam. They can leave. Gone. And it terrifies me. Just writing that brings me to tears. You are so vulnerable in a marriage. So I avoided seriously dating because I wanted to avoid marriage. Now that you know my fears… this next part might make more sense ;)

When I didn’t hear from Trent for a while, I was positive that he just wasn’t into me or that I had made this poor returned missionary too uncomfortable. But I honestly didn’t think much about him after our first date. I was trying to refigure my 5 year plan and I had one option – BYU-Idaho. But my first semester would not be until January 2012 (and I received my acceptance letter February of 2011). So I had a YEAR to wait.

But, he did call….. three weeks later. He invited me to go to a Diamondbacks game for a date the upcoming weekend. I consented but grudgingly. My experience with baseball games was nose bleed seats, dying of hunger and thirst, and little ants running around the field while you sweat under the Arizona sun. Well, this could not be a more inaccurate picture of our night. Trent got AWESOME seats – like row 5 awesome seats. He bought me dinner and drinks at the game AND dessert afterwards. Now, I don’t mean to seem shallow but I was impressed. He took really good care of me. I knew that night Trent would be a great provider.

Side note: Later on when we officially started dating, I teased him unmercifully for waiting 3 weeks to ask me out on our second date. He said, “Well, I wanted to earn the money myself to take you on a date. So I got a job the first week, and then I had to work two weeks in order to get my first paycheck to ask you out.” Later his mom told me, “When he and Kent [his dad] were trying to get the tickets Trent said, ‘Dad, this girl is top-notch. These can’t be lame seats. It has to be the perfect date.”

Okay back to the story. We went on a few dates. They were all fun and I loved being around him. But then, Trent did the unmentionable. It happened one day when he picked me up for school to go to lunch. We were walking into In-N-Out and he asked if he could hold my hand. The only thought racing in my mind was, “In Public?! You want to hold my hand in public where people can see?!” I was freaking out. I had NEVER held someone’s hand in public before. I was dying. To me holding a guy’s hand in public is basically telling the world ~~you are getting married~~ you are officially dating. And he hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend so we were definitely not dating. But, I said yes and the ENTIRE time I was sweating bullets. I am so weird when it comes to PDA. It was like that the entire time we were dating and engaged.

Three nights later, I got a phone call. It was Trent, and he was upset. Apparently there were pictures of me with another guy on Facebook. I had gone hiking on a date and he had just posted the pictures. It was harmless. But you see, Trent thought that we were exclusively dating. I was so confused. I remember telling him,

“Uh… no we aren’t? You didn’t ask me to be your girlfriend?”

“We held hands?! Doesn’t that make us official?”

I thought he was crazy. It was a long, awkward situation. He ended the conversation saying, “Well, I want to be with you. I want to be the only one you date. So will you be my girlfriend?” I was leaving to SLC to our worldwide church conference the next day….with 5 guys. So I said, “Let me go to conference and think about it and we can talk when I get back.”

While at conference, we stayed with one of my best friends and her roommates. On her wall were all these pictures drawn by children with Chinese words written across them. I inquired about the pictures and she said that she had taught English to young children in China. I am an Elementary Education major - so it peaked my interest. I started asking tons of questions and afterwards that was all I could think about? I could go from July-December and then start school in January. I made my decision within 24 hours...I was going to China.

Trent and I didn’t have our DTR until about a week after I returned from conference. There was a miscommunication on the time and so when he came to pick me up, I was in an XL sweater (I usually wear a small), torn jeans, and a pony tail. Trent, of course, was in a nice collared shirt and pants. We didn’t talk about my decision until we were driving home. The date had gone well, but there was that nervous tension in the air. He finally asked me if I had thought any more about us as a couple. I told him I had decided last week I was going to China. Of course, he thought I was clinically insane. He was also mad – real mad. He called me out too. He said, “Do you really want to do this or are you just doing this because you don’t know what to do?” Of course he was right. But I wasn't about to admit that. Instead, I became defensive and the whole thing ended pretty miserably. He didn’t even walk me to the door that night. But what did I care... right?! I was going to China?! Wrong.