It was Canada day 2000.  My boyfriend and I had been invited to a barbeque at his friend's house.  I had never met any of his friends before so I was excited to go.  I also found it a little weird that we had been dating for nearly five months and I was now just meeting his friends.  Oh well, that was besides the point.  We arrived at his friend Mark's house.  My boyfriend introduced me to everyone.  They all seemed very nice.  One guy in particular stood out, Mark.  He was the quiet one.  He just sat back and quietly watched everyone else interact.  He seemed to have a kind of mysterious feel about him.  There was just something about him that I liked right from the start.

     We hung out with a few of these new friends a lot over the next few months.  I always looked forward to when we went out with Mark especially.  My boyfriend and I went through some rough times and he had some issues he had to deal with.  He also liked to take off for a week or two and not tell anyone where he was going. 

     In November of 2000, when he took off on one of his little trips I decided I had enough of it and tried to find him.  Every other time I had just sat back and waited for him to come home.  I tracked down those friends I had been at the barbeque with and started talking to them.  We exchanged phone numbers incase we heard from my boyfriend.  This is when Mark and I started talking by ourselves.  We occasionally talked on the phone and in December we started talking regularly on the internet.  February we started hanging out just the two of us.  We usually went to a coffee shop and talked.  We didnt want my boyfriend to know about this, even though we werent doing anything wrong.  Mark saw how unhappy I was with my boyfriend and he was there for me to talk to when I went through the rough times.  We even started talking about what it would be like if the two of us were to date.  We both liked each other and we didnt keep it secret from each other.  Thats what I like about Mark, were always honest with each other.  We tell each other everything on our minds, and never keep things from one another. 

     I finally broke up with my boyfriend in July 2001.  Mark was right there waiting and wasted no time kissing me once I was single.  We had talked about that kiss for months now.  It was just like I thought it would be, gentle and magical.  He swept me off my feet. He was all I could think about. I couldn't wait to see him again. I always tried to look my best when I saw him. I usually wore a skirt because he said he really liked that.