Neil and I first met back in May 2020 at a friend’s apartment in Chicago. He had just moved to the city after finishing his master’s at Mizzou, and I’d already been in Chicago for a couple of years. My best friend, Kelsey, who knew Neil from Mizzou, was trying to force me to go up and talk to him because “he’s cute and you’re single.” So I did. We chatted for a few minutes, went our separate ways, and that was the end of the story…or so we thought. For the next few years, we stayed in the same circles thanks to our shared St. Louis and Mizzou connections, crossing paths more often than we realized mattered at the time. In October of 2023 at The Texan Bar in West Loop, Neil made a SpongeBob joke that only I laughed at (a strong foundation for any relationship), and that’s when something clicked. Not long after, we ran into each other at a Mizzou football watch party, and we ended up talking all night (they lost, and I pretended to care…another strong foundation). Our first official date was the next week at The Matchbox, followed by NADC burgers. I’ve always been a firm believer in the invisible string theory, and looking back, it really does feel like there were invisible strings tying us together all along. Even before we were dating, our lives were quietly overlapping in Dallas. My dad traveled there constantly for work at AT&T, and Neil flew in weekly for consulting. They passed each other in the office, and in the elevator, without ever knowing how connected they’d eventually be. Kind of a strange coincidence…or maybe just the strings in full effect. After a New Year’s Eve Mt Joy concert, Neil officially asked me to be his girlfriend, and four months later, he left! (sort of going against this whole strong foundation thing). He got a full-time role at AT&T in Dallas, and we somehow became even closer over a year of long distance through trips, weddings, and lots of FaceTimes. Dallas eventually became home for both of us, and now we can’t wait to start our marriage here, right where our paths were crossing long before we ever realized they were leading us to each other.