Soap Opera Sunday . . . The Big Deal That Really Wasn't

Hello my SOS peeps! Thanks for coming back despite my cliffhanger that went unanswered forEVER.

Lovely Brillig is hosting SOS this week, so if you don't know what it is, want to play along, or want a list of more awesome Soap Operas, head on over to her place where you'll find all that fun stuff.

Here are links to the beginnings of my saga so you can catch up if you've forgetted what's going on.
We met
We made out
We had our first big of drama

SO, now we continue.

After Richard said I would probably hate him for what he was about to tell me, I braced myself. All sort of things were going through my head . . . married, family hated me, gay, thought I smelled bad and couldn't be around me again . . . it's amazing how many bad things one can come up with in .5 seconds when faced with very bad news.

"I doubt I'll hate you, Richard. You can tell me anything. I'm sure it's not that big of a deal." My voice was all shaky and squeaky, but I got it out.

"Well" he sighed, "I have a son. He's six right now, and if you do the math, that means that he was born the summer after I graduated from high school when I was only 18. I got my girlfriend pregnant during our senior year."

I felt bad but I almost wanted to laugh. THIS was the horrible thing that was going to make me hate him? Granted, we did live in a state that was something like 99% LDS (Mormon) and having sex AND a baby out of wedlock was very taboo, but I wasn't really the judgmental type who wasn't going to date a guy because he'd messed up in his past.

"Richard, I wouldn't hate you for that! I'm sorry you were so nervous to tell me! I want to know all about him! What's his name? Where does he live? Do you see him? What's his Mom's name?" I had a million questions and I, of course, was dying to meet his son.

As my questions were answered one by one, I realized a little more why he was nervous to tell me. He hadn't seen his son in almost two years, despite their living less than twenty minutes apart. The mother was remarried and wanted her new husband to adopt the child. Richard, thinking he was doing what was best, wouldn't sign the paperwork because his own father had done exactly that when Richard was young and it had really hurt him. However, he sort of . . . stepped out of his son's life and didn't have any immediate plans to return.

Our conversation that night went on for about three hours. Richard really opened up to me and told me a lot more about his life and the opportunities he felt he'd passed up because of his son. He was so young when he found out he was going to be a father and in order to do the "responsible" thing, he'd forgone several athletic scholarships to get a job at the family woodworking business and support his girlfriend and child.

While I didn't necessarily agree with many of the choices he had made, it was obvious that he didn't either and wished he could go back and do many, many things differently. He told me that many of the girls he'd dated in the past wanted nothing to do with him because of his lack of college education, the obvious mistakes and his (up until just recent) inactivity in our shared religion. He had felt the full effects of what can sometimes be a fairly closed minded, judgmental community, and he was very wary of it. I was sure to make it very clear that I wouldn't be joining those passing judgment on him and that I was still very interested in dating him.

The next three weeks were absolute perfection. We lived an inconvenient 45 minutes away from each other but wanted to be together every day, so we just made it happen. We did all of our Christmas shopping together, we drove through horrendous blizzards to see each other. We spent every possible second in each others presence and we were both loving it. We spent time with each others families, bringing our younger siblings along sometimes, and basically, just integrated our lives.

There was one . . . problem. My friends couldn't stand Richard. They thought he was obnoxious and rude. The night they met him, I felt like not one thing was going right. He was trying to be his goofy, fun self, but it was like everything he said was wrong and offensive. I sat through dinner and a movie with a whole group of my friends and their dates cringing the whole time. He didn't like them and they didn't like him. This had to be fixed! I loved being around him so much, and I couldn't live without my friends! I just hoped everyone would come around because I was still pretty sure this guy was IT.

About a week before Christmas, Richard and I were driving to his house from a basketball game with all of his friends. (As a side note, in contrast to the night of meeting my friends, we'd had a great time. I loved all his friends and they seemed to love me -- specifically, they loved me MUCH more than they'd loved the girl he'd just recently broken up with, which was nice to hear.) During the drive we were talking about how much fun the night had been and how great it would be if we lived closer to each other. Then, the conversation turned to the fact that I was graduating from college in one semester and, at the time, my plan was to move to New York City. I wanted to attempt to "make it" in the musical theatre world. I told Richard it was really what I wanted to do and that I probably wouldn't change my mind about it.

Without missing a beat, Richard squeezed my hand and said "So, where do we get married? Here or in New York?"