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Beth and Tim's Relationship History (Pre-Wedding)

Before the wedding, it seemed important to explain to people why we were doing this. As such, we both wrote up our own personal descriptions of how we got together. There are two versions of this history that really matter: Beth's, and Tim's.

Of course, now we're writing our own history.

Beth's Version

I'm not really sure what to tell people when they ask how Tim and I ended up together.

I make a lot of friends, somehow, through places I go and people I know. Somehow, over the summer of my sophomore-junior year, I randomly met some people. They talked about their friend, Tim, and showed me his website. I looked at it and thought he seemed kind of weird, but interesting, and figured if I ever met him, I'd let him know.

7 months later, January 30, to be precise, one of the guys I met over the summer mentioned in an online forum how he was playing "6 degrees of Tim Skirvin" on Orkut (kind of like facebook) to see how he could connect people. I commented on his post that I kept hearing about Tim Skirvin, but never met him. That night, I went out with some friends, and when I got back in, checked my instant messenger to find a message from "nivrikst" (tskirvin backwards, for those not in the know). I told him I was tired and would talk to him later, and from then on, we were online nonstop until we met in person, a few days later.

We met in person at Empire chinese food on Green Street, for those in Chambana, and had a nice lunch, but it wasn't as easy to talk as online, so we resumed our online chatting for a few days until Friday night, when his friend randomly instant messaged me and we began talking. His friend kept "talking him up" to me, until I got the feeling I was being set up. I mentioned that to Tim, who was also online, and he asked me on our FIRST date, Saturday afternoon. I emphasize first because Tim still claims that our first date was our awkward first meeting at Empire. I think that if you don't call it a date, and all you're doing is meeting for lunch inbetween classes (for me) or work (for him), then it's not a date.

Anyway, we had our first date, and we've been inseparable ever since. I got to know Tim Skirvin, and find out that he's not only a great guy who is intelligent and funny, but also an amazing individual with a strong sense of integrity and loyalty to friends and family. When people ask me when I realized I loved him, I always say that I liked him when I first saw his webpage, and once we met, the feeling of like quickly changed to more. Since then, I love Tim more and more as time goes by. Sappy, I know. At one point in our relationship, when we had been dating little over a year, I had to go to McKinley and have minor surgery. I had never had any surgery or cutting before, and Tim came into the room with me, watching everything and holding my hand the entire time of the procedure, taking care of me afterwards (only leaving to buy a car, but that's another story). After that, I knew that he wanted to take care of me, and I had proved I had been willing to take care of him in the first few months of us dating, when he had the stomach flu (yuck!).

As shown in the earlier text, we are complete nerds, and yes, we got together not only because of mutual friends, notably, Ryan and Kerry, but also through Orkut, LJ and IM. Sad, I know.

We've had a few vacations together (Seattle, a cruise with friends, Spring Green), we have two extremely cute cats (Jesse and Tulip), and we've had a great time learning about each other and growing into a couple who wants to spend the rest of our lives together. Fun times. And, if you're reading this from the link from a "Save the Date" magnet, I hope you'll be with us as we commit ourselves to each other at the UUC on May 19, 2007.

Tim's Version

First Meeting and Courtship

I always laugh when we start talking about how we met. Our first contact was over Instant Messenger; but in reality, Orkut and LiveJournal were more important technologies, and our friends were more important still. It began on January 30th. Our mutual friend Ryan had made a comment in his journal about how he had spent a lonely evening at home playing Six Degrees of Skirvin on Orkut, the newest online craze. This girl responded the next day saying "i keep seeing this guy everywhere" - online, through friends, through everything. Hell, she was friends with my roommate! So that night, after our party finished up, I IM'd her. We talked for about half an hour, determined that she wished she could have been at our party, and went to sleep with the promise that we would continue to talk the next day.

We talked the next day. We talked the day after that. We just kept *on* talking. We had one brief meeting, at Empire Chinese on campus (2/5), which went well but almost seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of our online talking... And we would have kept on this way, just talking and flirting and carrying on kinda silly, if it hadn't been for the input of the single person that could guess what was going on: Kerry.

Kerry found out about Beth after my post saying that I had met her, and that I approved. He started talking with her online too - but with the more sinister purpose of verifying that she was in fact good for me, and talking me up to her at the same time.. I didn't know that he was doing this, nor did I necessarily approve. Still, when he started writing *me* about her, I not only grew a bit jealous, but realized that I should do something more about it all - helped because he was telling me the same thing. Oh, and her. 'Twas a masterful piece of matchmaking...

Beth had had to go home that weekend to go the funeral of the father of one of her close friends. In an act of extreme risk and tackiness, I asked her out on the 6th, for a proper coffee-date on the 7th. And she agreed.

The date started at 3:30pm at Green Street Coffeehouse; we've been together ever since.

The Relationship

When it comes down to it, I don't really know what to say about our relationship. There's just so *much* of it. We're constantly talking to each other, laughing at and with each other, picking on each other when it seems appropriate, helping each other when it isn't... We're often cute in public, but more than capable of just standing next to each other or even on the opposite sides of the room without recrimination. Our fondest goals are to make the other smile, either in indignation and shock, or in simple love.

I love that she didn't get upset when I ditched her on our first Valentine's Day together, because I needed to be with a friend going through chemotherapy. I love that she doesn't just blindly agree with what I say. I love that her tastes are different than mine; I love it when our tastes match, too. I love showing her things and watching her grow more obsessed with them than I already am. I love that she refuses to be anything less than my equal partner; I love that she knows that I want nothing less. I love that she cares so much about her friends. I love that she likes my friends too. I love both the differences and the odd similarities that join us. I love *us*.

I have loved the vacations we have had together - Seattle, Washington DC, Ohio, and the Bahamas, as well as the shorter trips around the state that I've taken with her. I have loved how her family has accepted me, just as mine has accepted her. I have loved spending time with her friends and ex-roommates, even if she'll never believe it. I loved seeing her be a student, and I now love seeing her put her life together again afterwards. I have loved trying to help her through everything, from homesickness to senioritis to actual sickness. And I believe that she has loved helping me every bit as much...

I love her.

Engagement

On October 10, 2005, I was getting sick. I had been grumpy for the couple of days beforehand - school was getting her down, and work wasn't too great for me either - but in retrospect it was obviously just that I was coming down with something. I spent a few hours at work griping about it that day, before finally calling Mom and asking for a ride home. But while I was waiting for Mom to arrive, Beth came by, bearing tiramisu and a scarf, worried about me and the fact that wanting to make both of our days better...

I almost started crying in happiness when I saw her. She only had a few minutes before she had to go to class, but it was enough to start me thinking. I went home, and I slept off part of the sickness... and when I woke up I continued thinking. Beth finally got home at around 11pm that night, and came to see how I was doing... and we talked, and she was good to me, and I knew that it was the right time.

I asked Beth to marry me on 10 Oct 2005, at about 11:30pm. She said yes.

The wedding date was set for May 19, 2007, both to give us time to prepare, and to make sure that we could find reasonable facilities. The date seemed far away at first; now, as I write this less than 11 months beforehand, it seems hardly enough time to plan. Soon we'll be sending out the save-the-date magnets, and a few hundred people will start poking around at this page to see what's going on... And I think I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.

Wish us luck. And if you got one of those magnets, you *are* going to show up, yes?