How We Met
Joe and I are software engineers. We first met at a hackathon, back on Valentine’s Day 2014 (because only the cool kids code on Valentine’s Day, right?). He was hacking there, and I was mentoring. I didn’t really notice him, admittedly, but he and I met again at the next one we went to. He told me a dumb joke (just my style), and we started talking online after that. He was living in Philadelphia and I was in NYC. A couple months later he moved to NYC for work, and we met up in a group for dinner. I was completely unaware that he liked me. I remember thinking that hanging out with him was so much easier than dating, but, again, I was oblivious.
Anyway, after a few of those group dinners, we gathered together for the super bowl. After the game he asked if I could give him some tech stickers for his guitar case, so he stuck around afterwards when everyone left. As I was giving him the stickers, he asked if he could cook for me for Valentine’s Day (a year after we had originally met!), and the rest is history.
how they asked
Joe and I love puzzles. From coding problems to board games, anything involving strategy and logic is our jam. He and I recently moved to Seattle. When we were in New York, we had done tons of those Escape the Room events, where you have to solve a series of puzzles to get out of a room in an hour. A friend of mine in Seattle invited me to go to Epic Team Adventures, which is one of Seattle’s escape rooms. I asked her if Joe could come (not realizing he had actually planned it), and we were scheduled to go on New Years Eve.
We started the puzzle room and it was high stress as we tried to solve all of the puzzles on time. Towards the end, the clues started becoming very specific to things I knew about, like solving a Rubik’s Cube, references to my favorite movies and books, that sort of thing. I was, just like the beginning of our relationship, very oblivious to what was happening. When I opened the last safe, there was a ring box in it. I opened it, thinking it was another clue, but then I turned around. Joe was kneeling there, and he asked me to marry him. It was the perfect prize at the end of the puzzle. :)
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