So... I have some news...

I guess I have a boyfriend now. His name is Jared Dalton.

I know just stating that is a kind of anti-climactic way of bringing it up, but this relationship has really thrown me for a loop. The story of us coming together is so odd and strange, that honestly, I'm kind of surprised that this is happening now. Although we're not yet "facebook official" (which I think is a stupid thing to get worried about.) We plan to relatively soon, once he tells his family. Because. I mean, who wants to find out their brother/son/step son is in a relationship... through facebook?

But anyway. Since not many people frequent my blog, and those who do are my close friends (<3) I figured it wouldn't do much harm to talk about this. I don't know that his family reads my blog, and the only one who might, pretty much already knows. So.

To talk about this, I'm going to give an account of how we met, not because I feel like gloating to the single world, but because it is truly a story of... strangeness and questions I can't answer.

I moved back to American Fork, Utah from California on the day after Christmas. For a while, I didn't do a whole lot but spend a lot of time with family. It was the holidays, and my brother's birthday is five days after Christmas, and then finally came New Year's.

No I didn't kiss him on New Year's. That would have made EVERYTHING so much simpler. As a matter of fact, he wasn't at my New Year's party. I hung out with a couple friends and played Harry Potter-themed Clue and watched Cee Lo Green butcher a good song.

I actually didn't meet him until New Year's Day, which was a Sunday. It was my first Sunday in a single's ward, so I decided to tag along with my two friends from the night before.

And of course, Jared happened to be a relatively new friend I just hadn't met before I moved. My two friends introduced us, and he began asking questions. Not like, your average "where are you from and what's your name?" type questions, but like... "What's your life like at home? What's your story?"

I love to talk. Well. I love to talk to people that seem interested. But I didn't know what to say. Sometimes my home life stories tend to scare people off, so I kind of kept it at a level where he got enough information, yet didn't know much at all about my life.

I was actually meeting him so I could help one of my two friends go out with him. She had told me, while I was living in California, that she had a crush on him, and I had given her what advice I could from afar, but it hadn't seemed to been working. I was meeting him so I could figure out why he wasn't receptive to her advances, then let my friend know, and then move on with my life.

Well it didn't end up working out that way, obviously. I will admit, I was interested in him simply because I had heard much about him long before I met him. He is my best friend's older step brother, so I knew of him for a long time before actually meeting him. Though I knew of him, I was only interested to the extent that I knew my friend was crushing, probably pretty hard, and he was a guy that was quite obviously going to be in our friendship circle for a while.

As it turns out, he became interested in me when I started messaging him on facebook. I'm the kind of girl who likes long conversations. They don't happen with everyone, but it came naturally for us. We had a lot to talk about. We both came from broken families, first off, which seems to be a big conversation piece. Not to say that we were comparing situations, but when you've been in a domestic disaster like those can be, you just want someone to understand. I don't think it's physically possible for someone to know what a separation is like unless they've lived through it. Even if your parents hated each other, it's almost better than watching everything fall apart at the seams.

Jared and I got to talking about it. Then we got to talking about other things. and many other things. And eventually we had a conversation that expanded across a hundred different topics and yet we still were able to keep talking for a long time.

It was then I started to remember my friend. I had to work that in somehow so I could find out this guy's mind. I basically had been sent to find out if he liked her, and then report back to my friend about it, so I arranged for the three of us to hang out. That could be done.

We watched a movie at my house. Jared gets super cuddly at times, so he put his arms around the both of us, the three amigos sitting on my basement couch watching a movie.

After the movie, my friend had to go home. I decided now could be a good time to ask him about her, because she had just left and the topic could be considered relevant if I just randomly brought her up in the middle of conversation.

I asked about her, with a heavy response. No, he says, he isn't interested in being anything more than just friends... with my friend.

It was heart breaking. I love my friends. It was kind of a shock, actually, because this friend of mine is a really good and interesting person, and I kind of figured he'd go for her at some point.

To try and make this less grueling to go through, I'm going to shorten the rest of it.

Basically over time, he and I started hanging out, and I kept attempting to get him to like her. It wasn't until just this last weekend, when he was at my house basically all the time, that I realized what was going on. He kept coming over not because he was interested in me talking about how he could probably date my friend if he wanted, he was interested in ME.

I had already broken the news to my friend a while earlier, and at this point, It had become almost completely pointless to keep trying. I gave in. I let myself like him. and now here we are.

Do I feel bad about it? yes and no. Yes, because I didn't ask for my friend to like him as well, no, because I tried to change his mind, but I couldn't. Do I feel bad for going after him now? No. Plain and simple. I can't change the way he feels, and at this point in my life, he makes me happy. I'm going to go for what makes me happy.

Jared is an excellent person. He's just... great :) we might have no idea how we ended up in this crazy relationship, but I like being here. It somehow works. I hope this lasts for a while. This guy is definitely a keeper <3

Generally, I don't like it when couples are like "OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS OUR SONG <3" but I will admit that the songs "Your Song" and "Starry Eyed", both by Ellie Goulding, remind me of him EVERY SINGLE TIME.

<3 Lisa!