We met through a mutual friend—someone I grew up with and someone he went to high school with. One night, I was staying over at her house when she invited him over, supposedly to help wash the dishes and hang out. I laughed and told her there was no way he was actually going to wash any dishes. Sure enough, when he arrived, she asked him to help, and he just stared at the sink in utter confusion before flat-out refusing. We all ended up hanging out anyway, eventually heading over to her grandma’s house. Afterward, he dropped us off and went home, and that seemed to be the end of it. Except it wasn’t. At the time, I had just bought my first-ever pair of Jordans for $160—a big deal for me. The next day, I realized, to my horror, that I had left them in the back seat of his car. Panicking, I called my friend to get his number so I could reach out. When I did, he agreed to bring them back and drove to my house a few days later. He walked in, sat on the couch, and started talking. And talking. And talking. He stayed for an hour and a half, and to this day, I honestly can’t even remember what we talked about. But from that moment on, thanks to his persistence, we never stopped talking. Six months later, we made it official. And the rest, as they say, is history.