How to Meet a Feminist

You might be wondering, how does one meet a feminist, or perhaps more importantly, how does one ask a feminist out on a date? Once again, I can't give you any hard fast rules, but I will share my experience.

My FW (future wife) and I met last August. I had just started attending this church in Houston that she had been attending for about two years. I was looking for a small group in the area, and in early July, my brother and I attended one that was about to split. After the split, we decided to try the new group. My FW also was looking for a new small group because she had just moved to the central Houston area. We both happened to go on the night that the new group started.

Now, I must point out that I was not simply trolling the small group for dates, and I certainly did not think that I would meet anyone like my FW. When I walked in, my FW was the one of the first people I talked to. I was immediately intrigued. I mean, it's not everyday you meet a Christian feminist who also happens to be gorgeous. I found out that she too was in grad school at UH and was new to the small group. That night, the group was huge, so the leaders decided another immediate split would be neccesary to keep the groups small. I was just really hoping to end up in the same group as this woman I had just met (so was she I came to find out).

We ended up in the same group, and about a month later after school had just started, my FW suggested that we carpool to school on Thursdays. This was her not so subtle way of letting me know she was interested, but I am clueless and assumed she just wanted to carpool. Of course, to do so, I had to leave for school three hours early and drive about 15 minutes out of my way. She didn't know that until later. Of course, she kept dropping hints that she was interested, and I kept being oblivious while trying to play it cool, which is impossible (as those of you who know me can attest).

About a month into the carpooling, my FW and her roommate threw a housewarming party. I went and made my special salsa, a surefire date-getter. I was still shuffling my feet at this point, but I had finally picked up on a few of the signals she was sending me, and I wanted to just go for it. She unfortunately thought that I was interested in one of her friends at the party, but I was only being nice because she was friends with my FW. She had pretty much given up hope that I was going to ask her out, but the next morning, I called her to ask her out... for the very next night. This was a bad idea for two reasons, one- the short notice, and two- my FW is NOT a morning person. Well, miracles happen, and she agreed to go out one week later.

On that first date, she told me that she wasn't interested in an exclusive dating relationship. I told her that was fine, but I wasn't interested in dating anyone else. Apparently that was a really smooth move because after about two weeks we were exclusive. The rest is history (or herstory if you prefer).

So there you have it, that's how you meet and begin dating a feminist.