On a Saturday evening in Late April, 2013 - two strangers were making plans with their friends to go out to Club Marcellas, a gay nightclub in downtown Buffalo. Their nights were going well; and at around 1:00 AM, while the Drag Queens were backstage getting ready for their next act - the host yelled out to the audience "ANYONE WITH AN APRIL BIRTHDAY - GET YOUR A$$ UP HERE." A group of about 15 were cajoled upstage by friends and blinded by spotlights as the host does a Q&A with each one - asking when their birthday is, etc. When the host got to Rob, he said "April 30th". So imagine his surprise when the cute guy standing right next to him, turns, smiles, and shouts out "I'm ALSO April 30th!" :) After they got off stage, in a truly romantic and selfless gesture, both Rob and Alex offered to use their complimentary birthday shots to "buy" the other a drink - thus cementing the "Birthday Buddies" friendship. They exchanged phone numbers that night before leaving the club and stayed in contact via text, but between Alex's work schedule, and Rob's college classes, it wasn't until Buffalo Pride in June that summer that they were able to hang out again. And that became the tradition for the next 5 years. With Alex busy with work and Rob with Grad School - we each lived our own lives, but stayed friends, chatting when we could, and making sure we had time to see each other every year for our Birthday and Pride weekends. Fast-forward to Early 2018; Rob was set to graduate, and instead of living in a research lab 24/7, finally had the time to be outside and socialize again! He invited Alex to join him with some friends for a Pokemon Go community-day event; the specific date or Pokemon doesn’t much matter now, but it was the next big step of our geeky life together. What started out as an excuse to hang out quickly became a regular monthly get-together. Over time, the two of us started hanging out more and more frequently; playing Pokemon Go, board games, video games, making plans for Alex to go to his first convention, even planning several vacations together - just the two of us. And despite literally EVERYONE in our lives able to see it, and how WE felt, - we both thought the OTHER still only saw us as "Just a Friend".

This classic "rom-com" level of miscommunication continued until Saturday, April 27th, 2019. Alex and Rob had already hung out several times that month, but hadn't made plans for the traditional birthday bar-hopping night yet. Rob was with his Best-Man, Kevin, their now-wife, Angela, and some other friends, when he received a late night, impromptu text from Alex, saying "Lets go to Funky Monkey!". So naturally, Rob convinces his friends to give up their comfortable, quiet night of couch sitting and Jackbox Games to go out to the bars. And despite breaking his glasses within the first few minutes of getting there, everyone had a fun night. Rob's friends planned on leaving the bar at a normal time, but to keep Rob out later, Alex agreed to give him a ride home. Once at Rob’s apartment, he finally had enough liquid courage in his system to ask Alex: “I really like you, but I can’t tell if you like me and I find it really hard to get a read on you because you’re flirty but not overly so, but I really like you and I think you’re cute, but I can’t figure out what’s going on in your head, and I don't want to make the friendship awkward, but DO you like me like that or not?” Alex, being the stone-cold sober driver, and whose sister was patiently waiting in the car for him to return, replied: "We’ll talk about it tomorrow, when you’re sober.” - Which Rob took as a VERY embarrassing rejection. Fortunately, we already had plans to hang out the next day, otherwise the sheer embarrassment would have kept Rob away for weeks - but he still had no intention of bringing up the conversation from the night before. Alex, however, had no such qualms and explained that he did genuinely want to discuss it when Rob was sober, but he was not going let a seemingly drink-induced confession ruin what had been an amazing friendship. And so we talked. We talked about what a relationship meant for us, what we were looking for in a partner, small plans and future goals. And we came to the conclusion, while this might be a confusing and new adventure for both of us, it was one we wanted to take together - one day at a time. Its been 1,476 days so far, and a lifetime left to go.