How We Met
Well, she’ll tell you that I hit on her while blackout drunk in a bar. But there’s a little more to it than that! Despite going to the same small University and graduating in the same year, our paths never really crossed. I knew who she was and thought she was cute, but had no real interactions past that. At least until the first Homecoming after graduation. I had returned to meet up with my college buddies, and late in the evening, I was far from sober and hit on Bradleigh at one of the two bars in the tiny town near our school. While I did not remember much of the night, I was fortunate enough to remember talking with her, and that we had a little bit in common. In particular, a fascination with Star Wars, Disney, and that we both played the same online game.
Over the next few months, we played a lot together, skyping while we played – both to facilitate communication in-game, and to spend time together. The more we played and talked, the more I fell, and began planning my long-term game. When she asked if I wanted to come visit her in Boston, I bought a train ticket, waited (im)patiently for the weekend, and took an overnight rail up north, only to get hit with almost two feet of snow while there. The snows of 2015 were just getting started.
The whole time we’d been talking, I had been applying to jobs in several major cities in the northeast. Two more trips to Boston for interviews, and a Valentine’s weekend visit later, I had dug my car out twice, missed a train home because the subways stopped running when I needed to leave, and had spent many wonderful days snowed in with the girl for whom I’d fallen head over heels. So, while her description isn’t wrong, there were also several months of wooing, chasing, way too much snow-shoveling, and a few wonderful date nights as well.
And by the time I’d packed everything into my car and moved up, I had won her heart. We had gone from strangers to gaming buddies, to friends, to beginning a relationship that would challenge, excite, strain, and fulfill us.
how they asked
She and I both cosplay, and have been doing Conventions and Charity events for a couple years now. About a month ago, we did an event as Anna and Hans from Disney’s “Frozen”, and loved being the characters. I mobilized. I reached out to a few friends to set up a photoshoot for us.
We got through most of the shoot, then I started playing “Love is an Open Door”, Hans & Anna’s duet, on my phone. We sang our parts, goofed around and had fun with it, and true to the song, as it ended, I got down on my knee and said something crazy; and she said something even crazier: “Yes!”
