If you haven’t read Part I yet, please do! This post will make much more sense.

The first time I went on a trip with “Barney” was in 2000. I just didn’t know it. We had both gone to the Brethren National Conference that year in Estes Park, Colorado. It’s funny to have similar pictures of our trip, but had no idea that each other existed.

He may have still not known of my existence, but for me, his reputation proceeded him. At Camp Bethany In 2002 (summer after my senior year) I heard him do a talk at Campfire one night. He was a freshman at AU and had opted to work as a camp counselor on staff that summer. I had been coming to Camp Bethany as a camper since summer of 8th grade. I only remember thinking and talking to my friends about how hysterical this guy was. They all agreed.

THE E-MAIL

June 1, 2005. I’m back at school at the Art Institute to finish up my last few weeks of classes. Being on quarters instead of semesters, it was nice to start the year in October, but by June we were all ready to get home for summer vacation.

But before leaving Pittsburgh, I found this email in my Xanga inbox. Facebook had only been out for a year, I don’t think we were friends on ICQ yet, and if you didn’t have someone’s phone number, you had to figure out their residential address and write them an actual letter. Or, call their parents’ home landline. Which, if they were using the internet you may or may not be able to reach them anyway. You know, the 1900s.

The subject line was: It’s Barney

“Hey Ali, What would you say if I said, ‘Ali, let’s grab a cup of coffee and shoot the breeze?‘ I was going to ask you on Sunday when I saw you, but it skipped my mind. I was involved in the service. Don’t take this oddly, I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. Since I have neither your phone number or email, I figured I’d zip a line where we do all our communicating anyway. I hope this doesn’t sound odd, but a cup of coffee is nice, pleasant and friendly. Let me know if you’re interested. And, once again, I’m sorry for an impersonal email. I hate them. But, you really don’t live close at the moment. And, look at it this way, if you’re not interested, just say the email never got through and you’re off the hook forever! Blessings, Barney”

Hand in marriage??? Off the hook forever?

What hand? What hook? What is going on?

If he hadn’t added those things in the message, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Catching up with him when I’m back in town wouldn’t have been a crazy request. Well, I wrote back and basically ignored his rant about my possible rejection of his coffee offer and said “…it’d be great to get some coffee sometime!” I included my (FLIP PHONE) mobile number and asked him when a good time would be to meet up after I got home from school.

I didn’t hear back for days.

Then came a list of dates that were both good and bad for him. I was getting confused on who actually asked who to hang out, because his schedule seemed nearly impossible to squeeze in a “nice, pleasant, and friendly cup of coffee”. Maybe we could only choose one of those three descriptors.

But a paragraph in this particular email caught my attention.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to coffee if it was something non-important that I could just keep putting off. I’m looking forward to it and I really mean that too. You’re a nifty person.” Nifty. Nifty? And he has something important that he has to say that he can’t put off? I thought this was just catching up with an old friend. This was not clear in the first message. Had I been bamboozled? I was so confused. He included his cell number this time and signed off with “Dr. Barnhart (HA…that’d be great!)”

I decided to put an end to the cryptic emails and just call him.

I got his voicemail, told him when I’d be available within his tight schedule and told him to call me back. By June 22nd (the same day of our future son’s birth—just four years later!) I decided to email this guy that had pretty much done the equivalent of a hit and run with me through email. My message basically stated: “Didn’t know if you got my phone message…said you’d be available most of this week…you’re probably still busy…take it easy… Ali”

One whole month later. July 17th.

Another email from Barney. Said his schedule “barfed all over him.” Likely story. And his “email crashed and he lost all the information” (like my phone number). Getting annoyed, I kind of just dropped the whole thing. He was the one to initiate this, I was just appeasing a request to catch up with an old friend, I had no interest in Barney romantically, so if he really has something to say to me, he’ll have to work hard to make this “meeting” happen. I had been single for two years, I wasn’t in a hurry to even hint at finding a new love interest. I had too much I was focused on and little time for male shenanigans.

We finally pinned down a time to meet at Cool Beans (AKA Common Grounds, AKA Vines.) I believe it was the first or second day of school for me (senior year and back at AU) and he was beginning seminary that fall. I remember it was a Tuesday, August 30th. I walked in the rain from my dorm room at Clark to the coffee shop in my thrift store baseball sweatshirt and jeans—frizzy red hair and all. Luckily I found another frizzy redhead that day to commiserate with about the humidity—my friend Jen Ditlevson (now Haglund; Jason officiated at her and Tim’s wedding ceremony). She was a reassuring sight for what I felt was probably going to be an uncertain and awkward meeting with my pal Barney. I don’t remember who was there first, but we sat down and exchanged pleasantries, acting as normal as possible.

My dear friend Jillian Van Duyne was working and served us our drinks, and though I was prepared to buy my own drink, Barney insisted that he pay. Uh oh.

Good thing my hair was in frizz-mode and most likely needed washed; I bet my heather gray raglan sweatshirt with red sleeves I had on needed washed too. The last thing I needed was for Barney to start liking me. My mind reeled. I was perfectly content being single for now and focusing on my artwork and finishing college. I knew time was a scarcity in life and I had plenty of things I wanted to accomplish and pursue. Boys only made things more complicated. I vowed to hold to a principle that unless I met someone that would honor what I wanted to achieve as dearly as their own, I’d happily stay single forever. There was no way I was going to be a piece of the puzzle to someone else’s life. I planned on completing school, finding a design job in San Diego, maybe getting an additional degree or certificate in film editing or genealogy. Dedicating my life to following Jesus as an independent and confident woman, dedicated to creativity, travel, and knowledge. Goodbye, Ashland! Goodbye, failed relationships! I was getting the heck out of here and no one could stop me.

When the pleasantries subsided, he shifted the conversation. Recall that initially he insisted this coffee meeting was just to hang out, to catch up. Look, I’ll deal with conflict directly if I have to—but like your average person, I will always try to avoid it when possible. So unless I could masterfully steer the conversation and make it painfully clear I’m in fact not a “nifty person”, he might bring up this mysterious important “something” that he couldn’t “keep putting off”.

Perhaps thrifty, but definitely not nifty.

Immediately after he started talking, it was clear. All the addends in this weird relational math equation suddenly added up and all the clues in the word choices he made confirmed my suspicion. There was another agenda. But it wasn’t quite what I had anticipated.

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Watch for the third installment of “How We Met” coming soon.