Butler boy

Okay, since most of you know anyway, I guess I should tell you the skinny on the boy-toy (aka: Butler boy). His name is Ryan and he is an athletic trainer at a different school about an hour away in Indianapolis. He just had a birthday June 30th and now is 30 years old. He's taking this well. He screamed and kicked and thrashed around on the floor for about 45 minutes and then pouted for another 2 hours. I told him not to worry cuz being a man he is mentally the equivalent of a 22 year old. He perked up after that.

Exactly how long we've been together is kind of a gray area. We met over a year ago at a basketball tournament. We were both covering women's basketball and our teams were at the same tournament(December '05). We met briefly (our teams were not playing each other) and the conversation went something like this:

Ryan: "Hey."
Me: "Hey."
Ryan: "I'm Ryan."
Me: "Casey. Nice to meet you."
Ryan: "You too. Doing all right this year?" (this is athletic trainer lingo
in regards to the team's overall health status)
Me: "Yeah. Not bad. You?"
Ryan: "Hangin' in."

Seriously. That was about it. It took all of 2 seconds. Not exactly the mind blowing, earth shattering conversation you would expect. Well, low and behold the next week we were scheduled to play his team at their school. We arrived before the game and he came up to me and here is conversation number 2:

Ryan: "Hey. Is it Stacey?"
Me: (with a slight glare) "Casey."
Ryan: "Right. Sorry. I'm terrible with names." (Yeah right)
Me: "It's okay. I dont remember your's at all." (I knew his name)
Ryan: "Oh. Ryan. Do you need anything before the game?" (this is more
trainer lingo for anything to help get the team ready)
Me: "Nope we're good. Thanks."

Pretty impressive, huh? So collectively we talked for about 5 and a half seconds. After the game (we won), I told him thanks for everything and got on the bus to go home. The following Monday I come in to work and check my email. Low and behold I get an email from Ryan. Very confused I open it and here's what it said (paraphrasing):

"Hi. It's Ryan, the athletic trainer from Butler. This may seem strange but I
was wondering if you would like to go out sometime? Maybe I can get your
number and give you a call?"

WHAT?!?!?!!?! Because I share my office with 6 graduate student assistant athletic trainers, I immediately show them all this email. I am so embarrassed, yet kind of intrigued. What do I do? I dont know this guy. He could be a freak!!!! So I did what I do best. I waited...for about four days. I rationalized as best as I could and bounced back and forth. Email him. Don't email him. Email him. Dont email him. Finally, my friend Brittany put it to me straight. She said, "Dude. Freakin' email him back. Take a chance. At the very least you get a free dinner."

"Well put," I thought. So I did. After two more days. He was surprised that I did eventually email him and again asked for my number. For some strange reason I gave it to him. We went out on a date after the Christmas holidays and began the casual dating thing. Well, we started to seriously date around March and then became exclusive that June.

Ryan is from "Chicago." Actually he is from a town called Algonquin about 30 minutes north of Chicago (This is something I will rant about at a later date). He has one little sister who is married and expecting her third child within the month. She will then have three boys. His mom and dad still live in the area where he grew up, near his sister.

Overall, Ryan is your typical yankee. He can be abrasive when he wants to be (never to me) and has no problem saying exactly what is on his mind (to anyone who will listen). He is a complete goof ball and we can be as weird or as serious as we want at anytime. He's a really good person and I love being around him. I always say it is important to have someone around you who truly makes you laugh from your gut. I am lucky to have at least two people like that: Ryan and Sara (my best friend from grad school).

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle (I had to throw in a GI Joe reference).