The two of us met by happenstance on a Christmas Eve flight in 2021 during our respective travels back home to Minneapolis and Omaha. At the time, Seamus was in the final stretch of completing his Ph.D. work and Leslie was well-established as a professor at Cal Poly. When Seamus boarded, Leslie was already comfortably seated in the aisle seat of the back row. It had been a long morning for Seamus – he had gone to lab early to complete some chemistry and then walked to the airport. In this distracted state he failed to remember his seat correctly and mistakenly sat by Leslie. A few words were exchanged before Seamus eventually realized his error and relocated to another part of the plane for the flight. Somehow this display of forgetfulness was enough to catch Leslie’s attention because during deboarding she struck up a conversation with him – first asking about his "cool shirt." At the time Seamus had academic career ambitions, so talking with a young professor was definitely an interesting prospect to him. We had a lively and friendly conversation, where Seamus shared that he was completing his dissertation and then planned to begin a postdoc in Boston and Leslie glowingly shared her joy with her current academic job. In total, the conversation lasted less than five minutes, but it was very pleasant. Although Seamus felt like a spark was there, he imagined that little good could come of it given we lived nearly two hours apart now and would live on opposite coasts soon enough after Seamus completed his dissertation work. Eventually, the line of passengers began to move forward, and Leslie exited while Seamus got some of his things together before following. After exiting the jet bridge, Leslie decided that she would like to get to know him a little bit more and she waited for him. The second encounter was quick – Leslie said she would like to grab a drink sometime when she was in Santa Barbara, and we exchanged numbers. In the next hours of texting, we found we had a lot in common besides academic inclination – from music tastes to hobbies to personal ambitions, we seemed like a well-suited match. Weeks later, with many phone calls between us, we returned from our holiday travels and got that drink in Santa Barbara together. We have been close ever since – Seamus never took that postdoc job in Boston and instead ended up landing a faculty job at Cal Poly.

In discussing proposals, there is often some discussion of nerves. Although the result of the final question is almost always predetermined, some apprehension regarding a "no" reply seems ever-present. However, every academic knows that there are proper steps to writing a successful proposal that can almost guarantee acceptance: you must collect preliminary data, gather successful peer reviews, consider long-term goals, and make a detailed budget. As an experienced proposal writer, I followed these steps to the letter. We began collecting preliminary data as a couple by spending much of our free time together and taking on the day-to-day challenges that partners share. We found promising early results that indicated compatibility and positive outcomes from our time together. The next stage was gathering positive peer reviews through meeting each other’s family and friends. Early on, I met Leslie’s colleagues and friends and received positive reviews from them. Later, we would meet each other’s families who also approved of our bond and could see how happy we made each other. With these positive reviews in mind, it was time to consider long-term goals – in this area, there was one large potential issue – Leslie was very settled in San Luis Obispo, an area that appeared to offer no employment for me. For a year we strove to overcome this hurdle – I moved to Buellton, which somewhat reduced the commute between our places of living but was not a satisfactory solution. Miraculously a position in my area opened at Cal Poly and I accepted an offer to join the faculty there. This was a truly unexpected turn of events that quickly had us budgeting out and making a detailed plan for our lives together. Like an itch, a thought implanted itself in Leslie’s brain: “Wouldn’t it be nice to buy a house out here if you get the job.” As I passed rounds of interviews, Leslie would occasionally scratch that itch – spending more time on Zillow looking at houses, eventually escalating to checking out an open house or two “just for fun” and talking to a realtor because “she seemed really nice.” Once I got offered the job, we both got swept up in the search and just weeks later we purchased our home in Cayucos. This purchase as much as anything confirmed that we were ready for any commitment (30 years of paying a California mortgage is no joke). Now that all the preparatory work was done, the proposal itself could be a simple and sweet affair. On August 12 we had a nice day in our sunny beach town of Cayucos. We walked our dog Piper around town, stopped to grab a picnic lunch to-go from a local sandwich shop, and picked up a bouquet of dahlias from a street vendor. We stopped at Whale Rock Reservoir to watch the still water and eat our picnic lunch as the dog swam about. I read Leslie a letter that contained many of the formative stories of our relationship and presented her with a ring along with art made from sea glass collected by our home. Of course, the proposal was accepted based on its strong merit and our history of collaboration. We're so excited to celebrate this next chapter in our lives with you! Hope to see you in California!