Allie: It’s 2017 and I’m on OkCupid feeling largely discouraged until….oh, this boy is cute. I don’t remember many of the details of his profile other than he had a picture of himself on horseback and mentioned that he read tarot cards but basically everything about him could be listed as a “pro”. I had this feeling in my gut that seemed insane. I knew I had to meet this guy, like asap. I messaged him: “Wanna come to this barn dance tonight?”. He suggested tea the next afternoon. Okay, reasonable and yes. We chatted on the app a bit and discovered a wild synchronicity. He lived across the street from the house I’d lived in for over three years and rented from the same landlords (the Daves, IYKYK) and we had a mutual friend in common! I had a very good feeling. Alex: I’d almost given up on OKCupid when I found Allie’s profile in 2017. She was really cute, we had a lot in common, I was really impressed with how handy and capable she seemed. Her sense of humor and straight-forwardness came through loud and clear. I immediately got nervous and bookmarked her page for later. The idea of coming close to getting what you want is terrifying sometimes! Remembering back, it’s really too perfect that the next thing that happened was I got a notification saying Allie had messaged me. I got sweaty palms immediately. I don’t remember what I said but I do remember feeling like it was going well. Somewhere in that first exchange, we learned that Allie used to live on the same street that I was currently living on, we had the same landlord! I called my friend Skylar, who also used to live on Mt. Pleasant Park, and asked, “Do you know someone named Allie Push?” As one of my dearest friends, Skylar’s excited reaction was a good omen. Allie: That next day, Sunday October 8th, we met for tea at Starry Night’s Cafe and saw him sitting at the table outside. Spoiler alert: the boy is Alex. We chatted about a broad range of topics with ease: what we did for work, nature, hiking adventures, art, music, and my wisdom tooth surgery that was the next day. We talked for 2 hours and set an intention to meet again, after I’d recovered from surgery. “I’ll be in touch soon”, I said earnestly.

Alex: She invited me to a barn dance the same night we started chatting. I was afraid I’d blow it so I made a counter offer that we meet the next day, Sunday October 8th, at my favorite cafe, Starry Nites. As I sat reading a book and saw the attractive stranger I recognized from her profile picture cross the street, my heart was pounding. But talking with Allie was easy from the start. Our first conversation turned out to be the blueprint for all our many epic spiraling, tangential conversations since. She was hilarious, artsy, open-minded, and swore like a sailor. I was smitten. Allie: And I planned to reach out by the following week. But my recovery from oral surgery was a nightmare and I didn’t know how I was supposed to show up well for a second date with a pounding headache and being able to only eat pureed foods. Alex texted me first, clearly very interested in wanting to meet up again and I did not want to let him pass me by. “Yes, let’s meet! I had such a good time last time. Oh the surgery, it’s all going fine. Dinner? Wonderful, see you then!” Subtext: “Fuck fuck fuck, don’t date anyone else! Second date, I’m interested! We need to go somewhere that serves soup.” The second date was a delight. Electric and filled with wonderful conservation, and Alex didn’t even notice that was I mushing my food on the roof of my mouth instead of chewing (*playing it cool*). We left the restaurant, continuing to talk as we walked each other back to our cars. Or at least that’s what we thought we were doing but both our cars were in the opposite direction. Oh, oh, we’re just walking and talking because we like each other. *Insert nervous excitement here* Soon I would learn that Alex wouldn’t have cared if I needed to drink all of my food because I was in too much pain to chew. I’d learn that he’d endlessly bring me ice packs and soup and heating pads and ibuprofen when I’m hurting. Alex: Our second date was fantastic. Allie, who has a notoriously bad poker face, put on the performance of a lifetime– I had no idea she was in incredible pain from having her wisdom teeth out. We talked and talked and talked. We left the greek restaurant to walk to our respective cars but ended up circling the block. I’ll never forget Allie telling me a story about a time in college when she and a friend jumped in a car on a whim and drove from Newark, DE to Houston, TX just to visit Rothko Chapel. I thought she was so cool! And of course, it was a hilarious moment when we both realized we had passed both of our cars a long time ago. Our relationship deepened quickly. So quickly it kinda freaked us out for a minute. We slowed, took a breath, and said “Do you want to do this? Like, for real do this?” The answer on both ends was yes, we did. We were each looking for a life partner and we were quite sure we were each looking at that person. We decided to be intentional and slow and talk endlessly no matter what. As Alex moved through grad school and I moved through career hell, we learned how to listen and hold each other up while enjoying each other’s company more and more. Oh, and it’s worth noting that Scout fell for Alex pretty hard too.

In 2019, we scooped up our first apartment. Well, it’s still our apartment. Since then we’ve learned how to build a home together. How to share space and chores and joy and sadness. Living with a partner can be a big adjustment and we took to it with grace and ease. We had our moments for sure but we moved through them with communication and love. We made this little apartment ours. We loved how our individual decor choices merged well together. We thrifted furniture. We made space for each other's art. We figured out how to ebb and flow together. We had such a solid first year in our home together. And thank goodness! Because about one year after we moved in, the pandemic hit. The pandemic took its toll on a lot of households and ours was no exception. We started it sick as dogs with the flu. Allie quickly became unemployed and Alex’s workplace transitioned to remote work. Our experience was as typical as it was unique. Managing privacy and alone time while not being able to leave our moderately sized apartment was a bit of a task. We’d laid such a strong foundation of communication and love that even the hard moments were actually pretty easy. We looked at all the hardship in the face, said “Well, this fucking sucks” and held each other. We managed through each other’s depression and enjoyed moments of crazed laughter that can only come from hard times. The part that was easy was that we love being home with each other more than just about anything. Being together is our favorite thing. And for the record, Scout was one of the world’s few cats who was thrilled to have her humans home all day. Even though our relationship can be marked by specific moments (trips and outings), it’s mostly marked by the mundane moments and how we relate to each other. Singing silly songs to the cat, watching beloved movies, taking walks in the neighborhood, selecting flowers for the garden, and any number of acts of care for each other. “Do you need to rest?” “Can you refill your water while I’m up?” “Oh, I scooped the litter box already. Don’t worry about it.” “Can you pick up [that key ingredient I forgot about] for dinner?” “Would you mind doing the dishes tonight?” “Oooh, come look at what the cat is doing!” “Thank you.” “Thank you.” “Thank you.” “Thank you.” “How are you feeling?” “Do you want to talk about your day?” “Do you need a hug?” “I hear you.” “I promise I’m listening…but just look at the cat real quick. She’s perfect.” “I love you.” “I love you.” “I love you.”

Having lived through the start of the pandemic in 2020, we started talking seriously about getting married. We were already clear from very early in our relationship that we were life partners but honestly, neither one of us had seriously thought we’d want legal documents to acknowledge our relationship. However, the reality check of seeing lives upended by COVID-19 made us realize that we wanted the legal protections that only being married would bring. It’s probably a surprise to no one reading this that we did not go the traditional route with our marriage. There was no official proposal either, just a series of conversations that led us to a practical yet exciting decision. On Sunday October 8th, our friend Bekka officiated our marriage, in our living room, in the presence of a small handful of local friends and Scout. For two non-traditional weirdos like us, getting married has been surprisingly sweet. It’s very meaningful to share the beginning of our story with you all and we are so smitten that we get to keep writing more chapters. We’ve invited you to read this because, even though we didn’t have a traditional wedding, we look forward to sharing our lives and love with all of you as you make guest appearances in our chapters that have yet to be written.