Ryan's Story

Daily, Georgia Tech has about 13,000 students on its campus. The chances of seeing someone you don’t already know is not uncommon. But seeing someone on multiple occasions, someone who stands-out from the crowd (and who caught your eye the first time you saw them), is not all that common. This someone I never saw smiling, never heard utter a word, and never made eye-contact with me: meet, Virginia.

Now if you’ve never been to the GT Catholic Center, then you probably never had a 70+ year old priest kiss all the women on the cheek as they leave the church. I guess it’s good to be king! It was at a mass towards the end of our freshman semester that I noticed Virginia in attendance and decided to introduce myself to her afterwards. As I made my way towards my dorm, I was already trailing Virginia. I managed to catch up to her and asked from behind if she found the kissing thing “weird”. To say that I got the most uninterested response would be an understatement. This was, however, the first time we ever met.

Fast-forward a little over six years (yes, years), and I made my way to Augusta on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend to ask Virginia to marry me. “Are you kidding?” was the initial reply, but the “Yes! Of course!” soon followed.

Thank you, Virginia, for saying “yes” and giving this boy a chance to share his life with you.

Virginia's Story

It was December 8, 2000, Stella's birthday and a holy day of obligation for the Catholic Church (the Immaculate Conception). I had gone to the Catholic Center on campus for the evening mass. The key to the story was that the (Italian) priest there, Father Mario (in his mid seventies at the time), had the habit of hugging and kissing all the girls and shaking all the guys' hands at the end of mass. I had just received my parting gift when I walked out of mass and I heard someone behind me say "Don't you think that's weird?" Of course being at Georgia Tech and a girl, I ignored the talking behind me (also I was shy). Then someone touched my elbow and I turned around and he said "Don't you think that's weird?" And I looked at him and said "What?" And he said "How he kisses all the girls?" And I somewhat agreed and he proceeded to make a joke out of it.

He then told me that he saw me more than he saw himself, so he had to introduce himself to me. At that point I thought he was a stalker. He told me his name was Ryan and that he was a nuclear engineer and he talked and walked with me back to my dorm and by then I had determined he was a cute funny stalker.

After that I didn't see him again until about a month later into second semester in Computer Science class at which point I emailed him and pretended to ask him a homework question to see if he'd remember me (cause I remembered him :o). And he did. . . he's not a stalker. . .he's my heart :o)