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leahandaddison2025@gmail.com

Years ago, Leah and I met online through the video game streaming platform Twitch. My friend Jared and I were streaming on our channel that we called Rogues and Roleplayers, while Leah was streaming games with her brother, Bryan, on their channel. The four of us began interacting with each others streams, and all of us quickly became close friends. We started to play games and stream them together with our other close online friends regularly. We organized many collaborative events between our Twitch channel communities, and created a lot of fond memories. As the years passed, we all fell off of streaming, but the friendship we built on Twitch was still stronger than ever. Leah and I spent many hours not only playing games online together with all the friends we made when we were streaming, but also engaging in other fun activities such as watching movies, playing tabletop games, or just chatting and cracking some jokes. Then, in 2021, I finally got to meet Leah and Bryan in person for the first time, after being online friends for years, when Jared and I attended the wedding of Bryan and his wife to be, Charlie. And while I didn't fully realize it at the time, it was when I met Leah in person that we started to get closer to each other. Over the next year and a half, Leah and I spent more and more time together, and we even started having some morning time chats before long. It was after she and I exchanged some silly fruit puns one night in our online chat room that I began to realize that I greatly admired her. After lots of nervous pacing and talking to myself, I finally got the guts to ask her out. We had our first date on my 33rd birthday, and the rest is history. Every day since then, I feel incredibly grateful to have found the love of my life. Someone I connect deeply with on so many levels. Someone to hold and comfort that everything will be okay when times are rough, and celebrate with when times are looking up. Someone to be my gaming buddy, and my cartoon watching buddy. Someone to laugh with, and cry with. I love Leah with all of my heart, and want nothing more than to see her happy. I am ready to love and support her from now until the end of time, and I would have it no other way.

I came to know Addison a short while after he became an online friend of my brother, Bryan. Before long, we all became a part of a small social group with friends who shared our love for gaming and geek pop culture, eventually becoming a tight knit little online community. Throughout the years of talking and communal gaming, I noticed something very precious about Addison: his ability to bring joy to others and make them laugh. Whenever he joined our group chat, my heart would leap a little in anticipation of the humor he'd bring. Several times, I had thought to myself, "I want to find a partner who makes me smile and laugh like he does." In 2021, I was able to meet Addison and our friends in person for the first time when they traveled to Missouri for the wedding of Bryan and my then soon-to-be sister, Charlie. After having been strictly online friends for so long, it was wonderful to become personal friends at long last. During this time, we shared some great memories, a lot of laughter, and my fondness of him continued to grow as he came to be among my most cherished friends. Now and then, I wondered if there might be some chemistry at play, but I always brushed the thought aside. Our friend group continued to meet up regularly in our online social group to play games, watch shows, or just share some laughs. Gradually, Addison and I began talking more and more, sometimes staying up ridiculously late and being the last ones to head off for the night. There finally came one evening where the two of us kept firing fruit puns at one another, the chemistry becoming rather pulpible. At this point, I'd been admiring him for a while but can applesolutely say I noticed there was a bit of a thing between both of us at that point. When he asked me out a few days later, I couldn't help asking, "It was the fruit puns, wasn't it?" What followed was the start of getting to know a precious friend anew as we spent countless hours talking and spending time with one another while navigating our friendship-turned-relationship. My admiration for his compassion and eagerness to bring joy to others turned into a deep love for this beautiful soul who I always hoped to see happy. I once said that I'd hoped for a partner who would make me smile and laugh as he did, and now I relish that very laughter together with this amazing man I've chosen to be by my side. I feel so blessed to have found someone I love and connect so deeply with, who shares that connection and understanding with me in turn. I look forward to offering him care and support while comforted in knowing he'll share very same with me as we move through good times and bad together. I'm so thrilled to embark on this next chapter of our lives together and am excited to see what lies in our future.