Seniors, 4 years dating

Q: When did you guys first meet?

Marli: We met in 8th grade at a homeschool co-op thing called Northpoint. We were both homeschooled.

Q: What did you guys love most about one another?

Marli: I didn’t really know him that well, but I thought he was cute and I liked his hair because he had the Bieber styled hair.

Chase: I don’t know, she was kinda cool. She was fun to talk to and that’s what kind of started stuff.

Q:  What was the first date like?

Chase: Weird date, because her mom wouldn’t let us hold hands.

Marli: True!

Chase: Her mom is a helicopter mom.

Marli: My mom was there with us, but there were other parents that were there. We went to see “Prince Caspian” at the movies. It was an awkward 8th grade date kind of thing. It was so embarrassing.

Q: What was the best present you guys have ever given each other?

Marli: My favorite one from him was from Christmas last year and it was a video that he made.

Chase: I paid someone to make it.

Marli: He secretly videotaped one of our dates. We went to the place where we met at Northpoint and he said a lot of cute stuff and he videotaped it and then he put it in a video, along with songs that are kind of “our songs” and a bunch of pictures of us together.

Chase: I don’t have a specific one that I thought “oh that one’s good”; they are all good. She has been really creative with everything—she made a scrapbook one time and it took her 5 months.

Q: How did you spend your first Valentine’s Day?

Marli: We went out to dinner.

Chase: We went to Noodles and Company.

Q: How has your relationship changed from the first time you started dating?

Marli: The difference now is that I know when he is joking.

Chase: She used to be very gullible.

Marli: He told me to look on the ceiling and that gullible was written on the ceiling.

Chase: She’d fall for it every time! No, but now I am more open with her and we can talk about whatever. It has given me an opportunity to grow as an individual and help me mature a lot faster because you have someone always checking you when you are acting immature. It made high school easier. When you have someone to talk to and you are not worrying about other girls all the time, it just cuts that piece of drama completely out of high school. It also opens up opportunities to do more because you don’t go to the zoo by yourself. So if I take Marli, I can go to the zoo and people don’t look at me funny when I just go to look at the animals.

Marli: I’m just your excuse to not look awkward.

Q: It’s hard to keep a relationship in high school because you change so much in those four years, so how have you guys maintained your relationship throughout high school?

Marli: I get so frustrated with movies and TV shows and relationships on there because they just give up so easily. They get in one little argument and its like oh it’s a big misunderstanding, like we aren’t going to work this out and they just end it. Like with us, yeah we’ll get mad and get into arguments but we always talk about it and work it out and it’s really not that big of a deal.

Chase: Both of us as Christians keep God at the center of our relationship so it removes certain aspects of a relationship that would be detrimental, and that would usually cause breakups. It eliminates those certain aspects of a relationship because then it lets you focus on better things in life. It keeps relationships serious because you have something extremely in common with another person but it doesn’t take it to the level that everyone takes it in high school.

Q: What do you think the future holds for you two?

Chase: That again just comes down to where God is going to take us. We’ll keep dating through college, but if it is obvious God is like, “Hey I have somebody else out there for you,” then I can respect that. But if it works out, it works out. That’s how this comes down to. Not like we are planning on “we can’t wait to get married, oh this is awesome, blah blah blah,” that is not what we are saying. Until we are married, she is somebody else’s wife and I am somebody else’s husband, all potentially. I mean we have that kind of respect for each other going out of this so we are not going to keep that from us in college.

Q: What is the coolest date you guys have been on?

Marli: Metamora, Indiana, hands down. Almost every fall break, me and my family stay at this bed and breakfast in Southern Indiana. My whole family rents it and we stay there for like a weekend, and I brought him one time and it was lovely.

Chase: Yeah, that one was good.