I met my girlfriend three years ago at a frat party.

While that's obviously the most ideal location for women to pick each other up, the odds were actually not so in our favor.

At the time, she was a sophomore and had just joined a sorority while I was a freshman, taking all of the frat d*ck I could find. I had just gotten raped, so I spent a lot of time not giving a damn and drunkenly crying in bathrooms.

Unfortunately, it was under these circumstances that we first met, and these are her earliest memories of me.

Back then, I wasn't even identifying as bisexual yet. So even though neither of us knew it at the time, that's when the waiting started.

Fast forward a year later to my sophomore year and her junior, I had just gotten into therapy, renounced Christianity, and finally came out as bisexual.

She was the first girl I ever hit on.

We started to talk sitting around a bonfire and she was undeniably attractive. From her gorgeous chocolate eyes, mischievous smile and laugh like reckless abandonment, I wasn't the only one drawn to her... which is why I chickened out at first.

My group and I started to leave and she stayed around the fire, snuggled in a blanket. It wasn't until we were halfway through the house when a friend of mine said if I didn't go back and get her number right away, he wouldn't give me a ride home.

I turned my scared ass around, walked right up to her and told her I had forgotten something.

"Your number."

Smooth, right?

Despite these mad skills, our text conversations lasted maybe a week before we fell out of touch.

Two years passed. She struggled in a relationship with a guy, I stayed with therapy until I was free from PTSD and reported my attacker and I eventually realized I was a lesbian.

Less romantically, the only contact we really had during that time was a drunken comment here and there on each other's Snapchat selfies. Both of us were awkward, dealing with mental issues and smoothing out the loose ends of our identities, so even this basic communication was a baby step.

Finally, she asked me out and we went to dinner.

At first, I wholeheartedly expected it not to work out. I had just gone through a rough breakup and went on the date in hopes of getting my mind off it, fully aware that rebounds never amount to anything. Also, it had just been so much time since we both unwittingly started waiting for each other.

How could it work out now when it didn't then?

But that night, sitting across from her in a cozy little cafe, I was stunned with how much we had in common. We're both English majors, have had similar life experiences in the past, have all the same values and are both unbearably awkward.

As time went by I fell for her harder and harder.

She is just adorable, with such a beautiful soul and the way we are together is addictive. She never fails to refresh my spirit, make me laugh and make me feel secure. Sweeter than sugar but still with a little bit of a bite to her. Our love language is identical, and she's even more gorgeous now than how I remember her to be when we first met.

The whole notion of her acting as a rebound was gone by the second date. It's inevitable not to compare how absolutely fulfilled Melanie makes me compared to anyone, let alone one that made me miserable and ashamed to be myself.

She not only accepts me and my quirks but actually likes me for them.

This journey with her reaffirmed what I already knew, which is that things will happen organically, in their own time and without any regard to what you may do or want.

At one point, I was as bad as most people who use Tinder. I would swipe endlessly, playing the get-to-know-you game with countless girls in hopes that one of them would stick and cure my loneliness. I was so dissatisfied with my life, I couldn't bear to be alone and hated the world for forcing me into solitude. I felt like I was being punished unfairly for something and felt entitled to a perfect person since I had put so much effort into healing and honing myself.

In the years while I waited for Mel, it came to the point where I was just so exhausted by being disappointed in dating that I gave up entirely. In fact, the ex before her was my first shot at dating someone in a very, very long time.

But that time, about a year and a half, was a gift. It was a long, cleansing breath for my emotions. Not always a walk in the park, but that time gave me the space to realign my expectations in dating with my values so I wouldn't have to settle anymore. All of a sudden, I was selfish with my time and feelings, knowing that dating isn't worth it if its half-assed or forced.

Melanie is the product of that, and she makes me deliriously happy.

This girl—and our romantic, affectionate, respectful, communicative, passionate, eye-opening relationship—was well worth the wait.