By now, all of you should know that I have a boyfriend of a little over a year. Despite a few bumps, my relationship has actually been one of the better ones. With that being said, my relationship nearly began and ended with the first few dates. So, I have to disclose a little bit of information here.

First, I had "known" Dylan for about a month when we went out on our first date. And by "known him" I mean we met on Tinder. So we had each others' phone numbers and I had done an obscene amount of social media stalking. But I didn't actually meet him face to face until I was about to get into his car. A super sketchy choice when you're barely 18 and have just moved over an hour from home.

Second, I had zero accurate information about him other than his name, the general area he was from, and what he looked like. For example, I thought he was at least 18 because that's how old you have to be in order to use Tinder. I'll explain later. I didn't say great decisions led me here.

Third, our first date was accidentally on Valentine's Day. It was the only day we both had free at the time. Total accident.

So anyway, I had expected our first date to go well because I had been having wonderful conversations with Dylan via text for a few weeks. I figured things couldn't be much different in person, right?

I met Dylan in a parking lot. Thankfully he was not some creeper so I got in his car. We stood in line and made conversation. This was when things were particularly awkward because we just asked stupid questions back and forth because neither of us had been on a first date in a while.

Flash forward a bit to watching "A Dog's Purpose". Horrible movie. I couldn't wait for it to end. Once the movie ended we silently got into the car and had a very awkward car ride back.

As far as I was concerned, things weren't going to go any further but I got a text from him and he wanted to try another date. Our second date was very low key. We went to a local diner and just talked instead of sitting in awkward silence.

However, this was when I learned that Dylan was younger than I thought. He talked a lot about school how he probably shouldn't be out too late. He had mentioned that his birthday was soon and when I asked how old he would be he accidentally blurted 18 and that's when things clicked. I was just a little caught off guard, but it was fine.

Flash forward and we were on our third date. This is where things actually look up. Our third date was going on another low-key dinner date, but this time, we were actually enjoying each other's company enough to want to continue spending time together. So, instead of going home, we decided to take a walk around the area.

A few minutes into our walk Dylan looked at me and said, "I have something for you, close your eyes and hold your hand out." Now, normally I would tell any woman ever, if a man you barely know tells you to close your eyes and hold out your hand, DON'T. It will be a penis. Luckily, in this case, Dylan put his hand in mine and held it. He hates when I tell people about that, but I think it's adorable.

That night we walked for hours and froze because we didn't want to go home. We often regard this as the night we knew we couldn't just end things on a few dates. I was sure of that when I felt a little sad when he had to go home.

I know what you're thinking, no kiss afterward? Nope. For some reason we wanted the first one to be low key with a lot less social pressure and we aren't really fans of PDA. We seldom do more than hold hands in public.

Anyway, we decided to make things "official" roughly a week later and things went pretty well until we decided we'd start having Netflix dates. PG rated Netflix dates. This is when we realized, we were still SO awkward. We spent hours on opposite ends of a couch, barely talking, and definitely not looking at each other. Thankfully, we got out of that painfully awkward phase, which lasted over a month.

Flash forward to the first "I love you". You're probably thinking it's going to be a big deal that made me cry, but nope. We went on a walk when I got out of class one day and I could tell that he felt weird because he was kind of antsy and his hands were super sweaty.

He went home to go hang out with some friends and then I got a text that was along the lines of "I have something to tell you and please don't make it weird when I do. I think I love you." I hadn't exactly imagined the first "I love you's" going down via text message. Nevertheless, I felt my heart swell and a year later, we're still randomly saying it.

My relationship has been pretty good and I still get butterflies when he looks at me a certain way. Obviously, we've had some down moments. We aren't perfect. There are days when we get in little spats about something one of us said or about nothing at all. But we're young and we're doing the best we can.

With all of that being said, I am thankful to be part of the continuation of one of the most awkward love stories you've probably ever read.