As many know, Tyler and I (Maddie) both went to school and were on the track team together at Eastern Michigan University. It was a forbidden love story. He was a sprinter, and I was a distance runner, our worlds just never really collided. I would always see him at the same table in the science complex studying away, he was very identifiable with his bandana and his pajama pants. I vividly remember telling my best friend, Allie, that I would like to be friends with TU because I had a feeling we’d mesh well. Fast forward to the summer after Tyler graduated. I went to Wurst Bar with my housemates for bingo night and I saw “TU” and his friends sitting at a table not far from ours. At one point in the night, I got the confidence to queue up “Sunflower” by Post Malone on the jukebox and walk over to Tyler and say “Whaddup TU?” And then proceeded to give him a fist bump…not very smooth on my end. A few months later I ran into Tyler AGAIN! Finally, a chance to redeem myself. Both our friend groups planned to go to Ann Arbor and decided to Uber together. At one point during the ride, I randomly mentioned that daddy long legs are the most venomous spiders, but their mouths are just too small to be able to bite us. Tyler went full nerd-mode by stating, “Daddy long legs are technically not spiders, they are opiliones. Also, they aren’t venomous, they have repugnatorial glands”, there was more…but I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say I impressed him with my (very limited) biology knowledge. We got to our destination and it was time to party. …or not. Ann Arbor was a bust so we decided to make our way back to Ypsi to see what was going on. The group dispersed and got separated in the chaos of a party. The girls made our way to the bathroom to take a selfie and curate a game plan. “Okay, this party is too chaotic. Let’s just leave and go get some STUFD. Got it”. I made my way to the door and saw Tyler on the way out and yelled, “Hey we are all going to STUFD if you want to come!”, he agreed and away we went. Tyler probably thinks this was all a ploy. We emerged from the house and it was just us two. We waited around and then decided to just make our way to STUFD and the rest will just meet us there. We placed our orders and decided to sit and wait, we started chatting it up and hitting it off. At one point, Allie finally came through the doors! However, she immediately said, “I think I’m just going to walk home now”. When I started to get up to walk with her, she insisted that I stayed. She must’ve saw the sparks flying. Tyler and I chatted it up, talked about our cats, sports, and yada, yada, yada. After we parted ways, I realized I didn’t have his number. Soooo, I gave myself until 6 PM the next day and then if he didn’t direct message me and ask me for my number by then, then I was going to make the move. Spoiler alert: I made the move, got his number, we went on a date a week later, and the rest is history. Sorry for the longgggggg and elaborate story, but I love telling this. Thanks for taking the time to read it through if you made it this far :)