Our story: Jamie’s version.
This is going to be my, Jamie’s version of how Ben and I met and our story. I invite him to tell his version if he feels up to it, as I certainly don’t want to speak for him. This is all my memory and how I felt etc. I would love to hear him tell his version.
We met in the summer of 2014. I had been living on my own for two years as I moved about an hour away from home when I got my first big girl job in 2012. I lived in my own one-bedroom apartment. I had been on dating websites for off and on for several years. My last long-term relationship, which happened to be my first, ended in 2008. That is a story for another time if I ever decide to share it. Sometimes the past really just needs to stay in the past. Anyway, I had been on a couple dating websites and had dated a few people over the years but nothing long-term since that first relationship. To be honest, I was getting fed up with the whole on-line dating thing. I felt like it wasn’t working, and I was this close to pulling myself off everything. One of the biggest things I struggled with is, as I’m sure maybe you can guess, my blindness. The question always was, do I put it in my profile or do I not? Do I tell right away, or do I let them get to at least know me a bit. I didn’t want to be deceiving, but too many stereotypes are out there about people who are blind, and before someone would get to know me, I feared they wouldn’t give me a chance. This was the case in some situations. Sometimes, they would find out when I told them not in my profile and would immediately stop talking to me. Other times, I put it in my profile and people would talk with me, but didn’t have the intention of ever dating me, most likely because of blindness, or they wouldn’t answer me at all most likely because of it. Of course, no one ever came out and said it directly, but I know all too well, this is probably the case. I knew it was going to take the right person. Someone to see me, not my disability. Someone who got to know the real me and didn’t automatically think they couldn’t possibly date someone with a visual impairment.
During this time, I had decided to change my profile one more time I told myself. This time, I will really try to make it “no big deal” I wanted to portray my disability as part of me, but not what makes me who I really am. I wanted it to come across how I felt about it, that so, I am blind, doesn’t mean I don’t think, feel, love, laugh, and care like anyone else whose eyes work just fine. So, I thought about it and wrote and rewrote my profile. Eventually, I came up with something that to this day Ben and I joke about because of how I worded things. One of the quotes I used was something like there are bigger fish to fry than if I can read the soup can label. I wanted to make whoever was reading it feel comfortable and like they could reach out and talk to me and get to know me.
IT was a Sunday night. I spent most of the weekend with my family for my brother’s graduation with his masters. I had had dinner with him and his girlfriend at the time the night before. I was back at my Condo as I did have to work the next day. I was sitting in my recliner my parents had given me six months earlier for my 30th birthday as a gift since I was moving into my first home other than an apartment. . The Little Mermaid was on TV, and I was scrolling through profiles on a dating website. I happened to be looking in the section of people who had viewed my profile recently and I came across various ones and I was sending messages out to the ones I liked. I had said to myself earlier that night, I’m just going to say hi if I like the profile, if he answers, great, if not, I will move on. That is the kind of mood I was in. So, Ben happened to be one I messaged that night. I had said to him, “Hi, my name is Jamie. How are you.” That was all. Simple, and basic, but just to see what would happen. I then went to bed.
The next morning, I woke to a response from him. He responded a few hours later. Later, I would find out that he had viewed or so he says to this day, my profile, and still had it up, but had gone to play video game soccer with his two best friends over the internet and planned to come back and message me as well. I’m still not sure that’s the case because he also admits he almost didn’t talk to me because of my name. for those who don’t know, Ben’s older brother’s name is James, and he goes by Jamie around his close family as in his mom and Ben. So, he wasn’t all that sure he could date someone with the same name as his brother. In the end, he did end up messaging me back though. He sent me a pretty lengthy message about himself and what he liked etc. I was instantly intrigued. I quickly got ready for the day and sat down at my kitchen table to write a response before it was time to leave for work. I remember throughout the day checking to see if he saw the message and if he responded, but he didn’t. He told me later that he wanted to but didn’t want me to think he read it and didn’t want to respond, so he didn’t sign into the app all day. He read my email through the email you get. He just didn’t have time to give me a response while working.
That night, he wrote me a response though and I got it a few hours after I got home from work. It was another lengthy one. I wrote my own back and I believe at this point I said if you’d like we can talk on the phone. I was drawn to him. We sent a few more messages back but did not talk on the phone that night. Tuesday night though, he did call me. We spent hours on the phone that first night. He was so easy to talk to, funny, and kind. I’d have to ask him to see if he remembers if it was that night, or Wednesday night he ended up asking me out on a date for Friday. I of course said yes. We talked Wednesday and Thursday night for hours again. We ended up texting throughout the day as well.
Friday night came along, and I spent most of the day with my mama at the hospital as I had been getting kidney testing done which I had scheduled for months. She then took me back to my condo and helped me get ready. Just like we did the video version of this, I or we will tell the story of our first date in another entry. 😊
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Life Through Our Eyes 