Like most modern love stories, this one begins online, specifically on Bumble. After matching with each other and being ghosted for a week by him, we finally met a bar in Old Town on a Sunday night in late February 2021. What started with a drink, a red wine and a ranch water, became a three hour long conversation complete with teasing, joking, flirting and learning about each other. It was the best first date I had ever been on. Besides being the most handsome man I had ever seen, I felt a connection to Kurtis as if we had know each other for a much longer time. Just twenty minutes after saying goodbye that night, I got a text asking to go out to dinner on Thursday that week. I, of course said yes and for the next four months, we go to know one another. I found out that my new favorite person was kind, driven and funny. He loved making people laugh and learning new things. He was curious about life and the people around him. He wasn't afraid of making his feelings known and prides himself on always being authentic. He loves to push himself to excel but never takes himself too seriously. As a fellow coffee lover like myself, we bonded over new coffee shops and long walks by the lake with Lucy. We both loved the city and enjoyed finding new restaurants, going to concerts, comedy shows bars, and games and talking about our pasts and future. In the three years of being together, we have navigated living in studio apartments, figuring out new jobs, meeting friends and family, the challenges of being a pet owners, and the joys of spending your life with your best friend. Kurtis has pushed me out of my comfort zone and showed me what a true commitment means. I always knew I needed to spend my life with someone stronger than myself and Kurtis makes me a better person everyday. Kurtis, when I asked you what your last name was on our first date I knew I wanted it to be my last name one day. I am so excited to get to call you my husband and am ready to take on the challenges, joys, triumphs and failures that life will bring. I thank God everyday that I met you and that very soon that "first date wish" will be true. OXOX-Alysson

Where do I begin? Do you want me to start at the internal conflict of myself at the time leading up to meeting a stranger at a bar on a Sunday evening or focus more on the times after I felt a connection deeper within myself than ever previously discovered? Let’s start with what made our very first interaction the lifeblood of our success as a lifetime partnership. She reached out while we were both seeking a connection in a city we both glorified while growing up to live in, during a time when finding someone attractive now included how desirable they were in a mask. We connect over Bumble’s messenger, move to text quickly, and I immediately protect her within the first few warmhearted messages she sends, by deciding my struggles and where I was in life was not worth her time or disappointment. I flee, or at least try to, with a classic ‘ghosting maneuver’. After 6 days of hearing nothing from me, on the exact weekend I chose to hunker down, cave-away, and steer clear of pursuing a partner until I found clarity deep within myself, my phone’s text alert decided to ping me on a Sunday morning. It’s Alysson. Strangers at this point, she simply had asked if there was an ember still burning in what is now our eternal flame (more or less). “What is this?”, I thought to myself. “How can a woman with Alysson’s disposition and lightheartedness find any source of fulfillment by reaching out to someone who ghosted her, purely inquiring about lossless hope to meet? With every intention of not wasting either of our time, while simultaneously respecting clarity for both of us, I begin to vent: ................................................... Sunday, February 21st, 2021: Alysson (9:48 am) - Hey Kurtis! are you still interested in grabbing a drink or taking a walk together? Kurtis: Good morning Alysson ☀️ I’d love to but I just deleted bumble. Apparently when I talk with people I lead them on and hurt their feelings. I don’t want to hurt yours or anyone else’s feelings. I decided to be lonely for a little while here and see what I’m missing. It’s not fun being the a****** who apparently only wants one thing [...]. It may seem weird I’m telling you all of this as someone you’re still getting to know but you’re so nice for reaching out to me again and deserve the ugly truth about me right now. I’m sorry I didn’t reply to you last week 😔 I hope you had a good week Alysson: Okay well I really appreciate the honest[y]! So thank you! Can I ask you a few questions about that? ..........................................

*Yes, I just spent 30 minutes scrolling through our texts back to the very first week.* You see, our story has nothing to do with what happened after fate found its timing. Our story has everything to do with what it means to truly find your person. Starting with a respectfully cautious Google search of ‘Alysson Wittmeyer’ before our first date, and leading into a moment after our date that will ripple deep within me for all of my days, this woman redefines what it means for me to be alive. Just as I began to start the same process I always had for safeguarding myself from connection, through planning and predicting, this same exact moment she began her lifelong impact on me…and we had not even met yet. (Sunday Afternoon’s Pre-Date Google Search – “Alysson Wittmeyer”); a confirmed Hawkeye Rower (check), with a stunning 6’2 presence (check), and a picture of her at a table of nurses with the caption “Pickle juice, lotion, and ice: How a 17-year old girl faced cancer head on”…?(knockout punch). See, what I was unaware of leading up to this moment, was that what I need most in this life is someone stronger than me to walk alongside. We can dissect Bumble’s algorithm and dilute our circumstance to proximity, but where words do not have the privilege of existing to articulate…we found each other…finally. As far as after our first fate, …I mean date…, the feeling and connection that will ripple eternally, as Alysson would later shed insight on serendipitously as we moved in together and I noticed a book she had from her time in Denmark, for me is the Danish word, Hygge (“h(u)ooga”) is a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. Alysson’s strength found my hygge, was always going to, and it was not until I was ready to be as strong within myself, to take a chance with honesty and intent, that allowed me to have finally found her and her me. Moments after our first date, I am sitting in my parked car, and… ..................................................... Sunday, February 21st, 2021: Kurtis (10:30 pm) - Thursday night? Are you free? Alysson (10:35 pm – 5 whole minutes later, really?) – Yes …the rest…is history. Alysson Soon-To-Be-Stirneman, You are mine and I am yours. I am deeply and eternally in love with you. Now, let’s get married. Love, Kurtis