Summer classes are never fun, especially summer math courses. However, sitting next to the cute boy always makes things more interesting. We first met in a summer trigonometry course in 2013. We spent 3 hours, twice a week chatting and flirting, while occasionally learning some math. We had to endure our fair share of evil glances from our teacher in attempts to shut us up and he even split us up at one point due to some straying eyes during a test. Josh denies his cheating off my test to this day, but I know it happened. Not once during this 8 week course did he ask for my number. He waited until we were taking our final exam to slip me a note. Mind you this was DURING the final exam when he was already accused of cheating on a test once! Luckily for us, he was slyer this time and didn’t get caught. However, after dating for a few months, we realized we were not in the ideal spots in our lives to continue pursuing the relationship.

Fast forward almost 7 years… Coffee is life! And for us, coffee has even more meaning, since it is what kept us in contact for 7 years. I was working at Starbucks the first time we had dated and would always recommend new drinks for Josh to try. During our time apart, about once or twice a year, Josh would text me and ask what to order from Starbucks. I, of course, would recommend something horribly complicated and fancy, but he always loved it. I never thought much into it, but little did I know, this was his way of keeping the door open. So it was only natural for us to meet at Starbucks for our first time seeing each other after all these years. We caught up on life while sipping on our coffees. Coffee, which I of course had to order for him.

There’s a lot of pressure behind the proposal. The setting, the weather, the atmosphere… so many things us guys need to get just right to create that “perfect memory”. So being the over thinker that I am, I ended up making this a much longer and drawn out proposal than it should have been. I knew Kristina was the one for a while, but finally took the plunge in January of 2022, when I bought the ring. I knew I didn’t want to propose in the winter months, as it’s cold and makes for mostly gloomy pictures. Just overall wasn’t what I envisioned when I pictured her saying “yes!” Flash forward a few months to spring and warmer weather and I get into proposal mode. Several festivities came and went with me hinting at friends that the proposal was soon to be. I nearly proposed a few times just out of excitement. Finally, I decided that a trip to the city to see one of our favorite bands would be THE day to pop the question! After an interesting story of how I asked for her parent’s blessing, which involved locking myself in the bathroom with her father (don’t ask), it was date time. Upon arriving in the city and getting some food, what seemed like hours of waiting came down to me slyly coming up with the excuse for us to get our favorite caffeinated drink together at a nearby cafe. What Kristina didn’t know was the cafe was just a ruse to have an excuse to walk through the middle of the park, where she suddenly turned around to find me on one knee, ring in hand. Several cheers from nearby park-goers later, we were happily engaged! It was cloudy and not the ideal day I had built in my head all this time, but at the same time it was - cause she said yes. Famous words of wisdom I’ve learned: nothing is ever going to be TRULY perfect in this world, but if you love one another, it won’t matter.