It took 30 years for Karen McDonald to land a date with Roger Mina, her crush from the seventh grade.

And he never knew that until the couple started dating two years ago.

"He was just so cute," said McDonald, 39, who still has a picture of the two of them from intermediate school. "I really liked him back then."

McDonald and Mina attended Moanalua Intermediate School — even sang in chorus together — but Mina, who's a year older, had no idea she admired him from a distance.

"I never paid too much attention to her then," said Mina, 39, a manager at Sam Choy's Diamond Head Restaurant.

When they graduated from Moanalua High School, they went their separate ways. McDonald attended Leeward Community College, where she graduated with an associate's degree in liberal arts. Mina pursued a career in restaurant management.

Ten years later McDonald and Mina bumped into each other at Compadres Bar & Grill in Ward Centre. She walked up to his table; he didn't recognize her.

Another 10 years after that, they ran into each other, this time at Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch & Crab, where Mina was working. This time Mina approached her table — and he remembered her name.

They didn't exchange numbers, but Mina found out where McDonald worked. He wanted to call and apologize for interrupting what he thought was a date. (She was having dinner with an out-of-town friend.) Mina left a message for her at her office, but he spoke so quickly McDonald couldn't decipher the digits. So she called the restaurant.

"I told him that guy wasn't my boyfriend," said McDonald, an inventory control clerk at Johnson Brothers of Hawai'i Inc. "But he was like, 'OK.' He was very cold."

Mina didn't catch her hint: "I'm very bad at that."

So McDonald took matters into her own hands. She called a mutual friend and had him relay the message that she was interested.

Finally, Mina got it.

He called her at work and invited her to a UH football fund-raiser and a movie. They've been dating ever since.

In fact, Mina knew from that first date McDonald was worth holding on to.

"She was very pretty, she holds herself very well, she's fun-loving," Mina said. "I told her that night that this fits right. ... The feeling was there."

They quickly found out they had a lot in common. They both listen to country music. They're both Catholic. And they've both lived in the same four-block radius for years and never knew it.

Last June, on a trip to New Jersey to visit her family, Mina stashed a small box in McDonald's suitcase. In it was a diamond band. He said it was a promise ring.

This came as a surprise to McDonald, who thought Mina didn't want to get married.

"The more I spent time with her, the more I realized I enjoyed being with her," Mina said. "She balances me. She's pretty much everything I'm not. ... She's always there for me, she makes sure I'm taken care of."

McDonald still wasn't convinced. So when Mina actually got down on bended knee and proposed the next month, she thought he was kidding.

"I told him that's not something you should joke about," she said.

It didn't help that Mina hadn't planned out the proposal at all. He didn't even have a ring. He decided on the way home from the movies that he would propose that night. He pulled over in a parking lot off Lagoon Drive and popped the question.

"At first I didn't answer him," McDonald said. "I was a little stunned."

They decided to get married the next summer, blending his Filipino and her Italian cultures. They both wore traditional Filipino wedding costumes; the favors were candy-coated almonds, an Italian custom. The ceremony was held on June 4 at Holy Family Church. The reception followed at Hickam Officer's Club.

The couple is still adjusting to married life. They're not quite finished moving into their two-bedroom condo in Salt Lake. And the fact that they work opposite schedules — she works days, he works nights — makes it difficult to find time together.

But they're willing and excited about figuring it all out together.

"For me, I have to remember it's 'us' and not 'me' anymore," Mina said. "You learn there's other ways, better ways, of doing things. There's compromises going on every day."

Reach Catherine E. Toth at ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.