How We Met
On May 23, 2017, I was 19 years old and was home as I had just finished my first year at Stephen F. Austin State University. I was set to start a job soon, but at the time of my training, I was only working Friday and Saturday nights for two weeks straight. Needless to say, I had some time to kill. I was on the OkCupid app, just swiping left when I came across Drew’s profile. I still remember his username to this day- “BasicAustinite”. He was hella cute, and after reading his profile (which I don’t remember any detail of), I swiped right. After a few minutes, I received a notification from OkCupid saying that Drew had viewed my profile (yeah, they do that). Then I received another one saying that he had also swiped right and we liked each other! I figured I should make the first move and send a message but after a few minutes of drawing a blank, he messaged me first- with a hilarious message as to why he didn’t trust OkCupid’s matching algorithms because a personality point was different from what I had written down on my profile. I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that. We eventually talked for hours and the next day, May 24 we met at the top of the hill at Zilker Park in Austin and had lunch together at Guero’s Taco Bar on South Congress. He brought his dog, Daisy with him too! On May 28, we became an official couple. Endured a year and a half of long-distance as we went through school, plus six months as I completed my student teaching at home. Finally closed the distance and moved in together on December 6, 2019.
How They Asked
The ring belongs to my great-grandmother, Sarah O’Neal. Ever since I was about 10 years old, I became obsessed with owning the ring as it was in my mother’s possession. I would sneak into my mom’s jewelry box constantly to look at it and try it on. Even before Drew and I were seriously discussing marriage, I told him about the opal ring and how I always imagined it as my engagement ring.
Due to the Coronavirus, Drew’s initial proposal plan got derailed due to the City of Austin’s decision to cancel SXSW and close down all bars and restaurants so he had to get creative. I told him no matter what, however, he did it would be special and not obsess. After all, Jim and Pam got engaged at a gas station!
On March 21, we were at my parent’s house just having a good time together. As we were going to bed Drew asked me if our kitchen trash can was full. I said not too bad and he made a remark about how he MUST take it out the next day. Weird, but okay.
March 22- he left to go take out the trash and was gone for a long time. When he returned, he said that he swung by our apartment complex’s office to look at their new hours since they were changing due to the Coronavirus. He then asked if I wanted to go and check the mail. So we walked to the mailboxes and he tried to open ours but gave up after three seconds saying “It’s stuck, can you do it?” I was extremely confused, as he never has trouble with that. I opened our mailbox door and was surprised to see his University of Texas ring box of all things in there 😂
I asked why it was in there and he said: “Why don’t you open it?” And it hit me. I started to cry and he got down on one knee. He made a beautiful passionate speech that I honestly cannot remember but I made sure to say “Yes!”
Just us and the mailboxes. And it was perfect.