Lauren and I were both graduate music theory students at IU when we met, and it didn’t take long for me to realize how great she is. Sometime later I learned that she was single and on the dating scene, and so I knew I had to put myself out there and see if she’d be interested in going out with me. After a few weeks of not seeing her, I decided that I would send her the most well planned, perfectly worded message asking her out to dinner. Writing is not easy for me, and so I spent a few days drafting up the message on my computer. I don’t know if it was a strong wind or my deep subconscious, but late one night as I am composing this message my hand slips and sends the incoherent mess I had been working on. In a panic I finish the message in something approximating language, send the rest off, and go screaming into the night to my good friends and dedicated support team Jinny and Nathan. I laid on their couch, sweating, until Lauren finally answered; she would like to go to dinner, and we could talk about it more tomorrow. The day of our first date arrives, and it is to follow the departmental colloquium meeting. A presentation is given by a visiting speaker and I do not catch a single word of it; all I can do is grip the table in a panic. The session finally ends, and we meet in the hallway to head to the nearby ramen place. Lauren excuses herself for a moment before we leave, and I perform the fastest self-check I can: hair, shirt, tie, pants, shoes, all as good as it's going to get. I brace myself, a twisted knot of nerves bursting at the seams, and then she steps out and says she is ready to go. And then all of the nerves are immediately gone, because Lauren is the most sweet, funny, and considerate person, and talking with her was the most natural thing I had ever done. And still is. Our date is cut short by a concert she has to perform that night, but before letting her go I string together a series of sounds that approach "can we do this again?" And we did.

After a few casual conversations over the years, we broached the subject of engagement seriously in the place where all of the best deep conversations occur—a roadtrip. In general, I'm pretty surprise-averse (I'd much rather be in on the fun!), so an unexpected baseball jumbotron proposal wouldn't really be our style. We decided to go through the experience together, shopping around and each designing our own engagement rings. Our end-of-summer camping trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan seemed like the perfect spot to make things official. We started off our day with a ferry ride to Mackinac Island, where I somehow became the only passenger aboard to be hit by a tidal wave of the crisp waters of Lake Huron. After a lap and a half of beautiful biking around the island, I at last dried off, and we found a quiet place along a trail to stroll. We exchanged some words (and some tears), took some ring selfies, and hopped back on our bikes as an engaged couple!