On a bitter cold February night, my Brazilian friends invited me to a birthday party. I didn't know the birthday girl. It happened at the clubhouse of a condo complex in the exciting town of Rockville, Maryland! Not a lot of people were there. Just me and my friends, the birthday girl, and this Brazilian guy who worked in a restaurant and told me "My restaurant friends are lost in the parking lot. I'm gonna go find them. Could you unlock the door when I come back?" I wasn't paying attention, so someone else opened the door. Then Rod walked in. For some reason (beer), I felt confident enough to try to talk to him. Not my MO at all. But his friends (ahem... Aniket and Leo) kept answering for him. I thought he wasn't interested. We then moved the party to the Brazilian restaurant guy's apartment to play cards and Rod sat across the table from me. Well well... look who's making eye contact with me! Rod and I started talking. He told me this story about how he had just come back from Paris, and had been to Prague, and backpacked through Greece, and I was all like, wow! He like... travels! Joking! Although I did appreciate his worldliness. Anyway, phones and smiles were exchanged. Next day, he calls me and asks me out (OMG!), but I can't go. It's Super Bowl Sunday, my girlfriends and I had plans. I'm afraid he thinks I'm blowing him off, but I had to leave it up to the Fates. Monday (MONDAY!) he calls me again! WHO IS THIS GUY? Unprecedented! Asks me out for coffee. I mean... YES! Sure! We meet and talk non-stop for 2 hours. Then the coffee shop closes and he asks if I want to go over to his house... where his parents live. I was like, "Uh! What?". So he saves it by inviting me to the movies. That was better, he should have gone with that the first time around. We watched The Departed... That's a lie. We kept talking throughout the movie. Don't worry, we were the only ones in the theater. Then he kissed me. And that was that. We've been together since!