Samie Iliffe met her husband in high school when she was 14 and he was 16. After 15 years together, they got married, and people ask her all the time whether she feels like she missed out.
Courtesy of the author
I was glugging a pint of water at the bar, pushing back my "bride" headband for the 87th time, when a woman approached me with her glass extended.
"Congratulations, when's the wedding?" She asked. We clinked glasses. "I'm already married," I said.
My husband and I had secretly gotten married a few weeks prior, but my friends decided to throw me a belated bachelorette party, demanding to have the night they insisted they were "robbed of."
With my mouth dry from a lot of prosecco, I carried on telling our story, "Well, we'd been together for 15 years, so we just kind of thought let's do it." The woman stopped me with a splutter, "How old are you?"
I'm 29, but I sometimes get mistaken as someone younger, so when I drop the 15-year line, people are often a little perplexed.
I was 14 when I met my husband, Kieran, who was 16. In the UK, that meant we were two school years apart and, unsurprisingly, each other's first relationship.
We met at a house party, loud with music, teenagers getting drunk and kissing in dark corners. We sat together crammed on a sofa; it began there and never ended. You don't expect your first serious relationship to turn into your only serious relationship. For us, it just happened.
Weeks turned into months, then years, and as cliché as it sounds — time flew. We finished school together, went to separate universities, did some traveling, and moved in with one another quickly afterward.
The question I'm often asked is, "Do you think you're missing out?"
While it's hard to pinpoint what's meant by this question, I'm pretty certain they mean sex — or partying, maybe both.
Throughout our early relationship, the boom of online dating apps was just beginning. Hookup culture existed for my friends but more in the way of drunken one-night stands after stumbling out of clubs.
Tinder launched in 2012, and from there began hilarious, horrifying, and some heartwarming success stories among my friends. The more they dated and had more casual sex, the more I was often asked about missing out.
I can't lie. I would listen wide-eyed, amazed at their crazy dating stories. We would discuss in depth how I'd approach their situations, where I'd momentarily be drawn into the story, and I would think, what if it were me?
MSN was integral to my and Kieran's relationship in the early days, but our pool of online interaction with other people was small, much like the town we grew up in. The noise of the online world had sailed us by, and I'm thankful for that.
But no, I don't think I missed out on anything.
The love Kieran has always given me is far greater than I had ever been taught to expect. I feel lucky to be in a relationship like ours.
I knew pretty much from the moment I met my husband that he was the love of my life. I believe this happens to us all, just at different times. But instead of being 21, 33, or 56, I was 14. And it really was as simple as that.
