I met Ben my freshman year of college. He lived on my floor, and even though he had his own dorm room, I’d often find him asleep on my couch because, as he put it, "It smells nicer and is cleaner than my room." Ben was always a good friend throughout college, but it wasn’t until senior year that we really became best friends. I’d take Ben to every date event, and we always had the BEST time together. Fast forward to Fall 2023, two years after college—I moved to the NYC area where Ben had been living since graduation. We picked up right where we left off, and Ben was kind enough to show me around the city and make sure I didn’t get lost on the subway (haha). Over the fall, we went on what I like to call "friend dates," and it didn’t take long for us to realize how strong the bond and love between us really was. After just a month of dating Ben, I knew without a doubt that I was going to marry him.

I met Reagan a couple of weeks into my freshman year of college. My best man, Jackson, knew one of her roommates, and it turned out that we lived in the same dorm on the same floor. We quickly became a close group. It was great having friends right down the hall because I always had someone to grab lunch with and share my stories from the previous weekend. It wasn’t until senior year, when Reagan and I started going to date events together, that I developed a crush on her. By the end of senior year, I had a solid crush on her, and she definitely knew it. She invited me to all her date events, and while I played it cool, I always thought we would be great together. After graduation, I was disappointed that things had never worked out with Reagan, but I figured it just wasn’t meant to be. In the Fall of 2023, two years after college, Reagan moved to NYC, where I’d been living since graduation. When I heard she was moving to the city, I couldn't help but feel a little excited. I had a crush on her in college, after all, and while I had no expectations, a small part of me wondered if this could be a second chance. Still, I decided to play it cool and just see where things would go. Luckily (for me) she didn't have a lot of friends in NYC, so I quickly became her tour guide around the city. We started going on what she called "friend dates", and the crush that I had in college quickly returned. After plenty of subway rides, friend dates, and my not-so-subtle efforts to win her over, Reagan finally saw what I had known all along. What started as a friendship had turned into exactly what I’d been hoping for all along—something real and worth the wait.