Adam

This week, I went to my very first non-student singles ward. As I met with the Branch President to receive my calling he said, "Sister Sieber, we have met before. You may not remember me, but I remember you." I apologized and said I didn't remember, and asked him to remind me. He said "You went to seminary with my son Adam," and I said "OOOHHHHHHHH! How is he?!"

To interject: Adam was indeed in my seminary class my senior year. He wore t shirts and jeans (the kind of jeans that are neither in, nor out of style) and cross trainers to school. Very shy, yet very funny, without ever insulting anyone personally, he was easy to love. He had the best manners of anyone I've ever met, never indecorous or rude. Especially in how he treated women. And so I and another girl in class paid a lot of attention to Adam. We cheered when we saw him, and begged to be in his group or his partner in assignments, and generally caused a small ruckus. Adam never showed any indication of how he felt about this except perhaps a little smile and a self-depreciating comment about us being nice, but I could tell he liked it. 

I asked Adam to go to snowball with me that year, and even though it was a far from flawless date (transportation/dinner issues, etc.) Adam was charming, through the whole thing. I had a really good group of friends in high school, the kind who valued cleverness and fun above things like clothes or drama. I think he had a good time. Even though I did have to warn him that one of my friends would try to corrupt him at the dance and dance with him inappropriately, he remained calm and unperturbed (and he did resist. We just danced together so she didn't have the opportunity I think). 
That was my relationship with Adam. It was where we were always pleased to see each other, and generally had a very good understanding of where each one stood with the other person; on grounds of unconditional acceptance. 
So, six years later, I am sitting in a church office with his father, and ask him, how Adam is doing. He says that Adam is doing well, that he is getting married in a few weeks and I say "Oh, REALLY?" because we had lost touch and I didn't know at all how his life was. His father said yes, and everyone was very happy, and then he said "But I want you to know, Adam came home from that date, and I heard everything, and I just, well I want to thank you--" and I interrupted him "No, no!" I said, Adam was wonderful! He was a perfect date." and his dad smiled and said "Yes. Adam is a gentleman." And I agreed. 
Then today, I was talking with another girl in the ward who had actually gotten to know Adam after his mission a little bit. She asked about how we became friends, and I reiterated the above story to her, and she smiled and nodded throughout the whole thing. And then she said "He really liked you, you know. I heard about it." I said "What?!" she nodded again. "He had a huge crush on you, for quite some time." I said. "NO. Really?!" "Yeah," she continued "But he had his mission to serve, so he figured he would just come and find you after that, but in the end never did." 
Well this is all really a moot point because Adam is getting married in a week, and this is NOT about lost chances, or some melodramatic irony, etc., but it is about how I didn't have a clue that he liked me. It also brings a small amount of hope to me, that I have been liked, by somebody really decent, and if it happened, once, it can happen again.