When You Know, You Know

Mr. Pineapple and I dated "officially" for 8 months before he proposed. Yep, that's it - 8 months. The first time he introduced me to someone as his girlfriend was 5 months before he proposed. I never thought that I would be dating my boyfriend for less than a year before he became my husband-to-be, but once we were there it felt like perfect timing.

Since Mr. P and worked together before we started dating, we got to see each others true colors long before a first kiss. I was a stubborn manager of a residence hall desk and he was my supervisor. If one of my employees didn't show up for work and I had to sit at the desk from 4-8am, no excuse was good enough. Immediate probation. Mr. Pineapple on the other hand was the good cop who would convince me to give them another chance. I would get distracted and doodle during Mr. P's meetings and there was the one time we had to call him and remind him that he should be at work with us rather than watching the Steelers.

The desk services team out for dinner in 2005.

For us, building a working relationship first made a loving relationship that much easier. From the first date we knew the good and the grumpy about one another. He knew I was weird and I knew he was even weirder (debatable). It scared me that several months into the relationship we had yet to have an argument - everyone argues, right? Everything was just so good, so comforting.

Mr. Pineapple was the first to say the word "wedding." A few months into our relationship we were at our favorite hang out, and the location of our first date, Smokin' Joes Saloon. Mr. P popped over to the juke box and a few minutes later Howie Day's Brace Yourself started to play. Mr P. whispered in my ear "I want them to play this song when we get married." From then on there was no doubt.

Since Mr. Pineapple and I both worked at Carnegie Mellon, often in a client/designer relationship, we kept our personal relationship fairly hushed. We told the people who mattered - my boss and his, but for the most part we didn't want people making assumptions. This, of course, all flew out the window after we became engaged. We got a lot of shocked responses such as "I didn't even know you were dating!" So, convincing people we were serious, and in love, was not an easy task.

Anyone else have a fairly short stint as boyfriend and girlfriend before deciding you were ready to take the plunge? What do you tell people who doubt you could know in such a short period of time?