I was 97% sure that Ryan didn't like me when we first met. I showed up at a Halloween party thrown at his place as the new person at church and he was the first person I ran into but he didn't even look my way when I came in. A couple weeks later, the young adults group decided to go to Wursthaus for a late night happy hour. It was a pretty big group but I ended up sitting at the same conversation circle as Ryan, one of his roommates and another person. Despite the close circle, Ryan didn't acknowledge me at all during the conversation. By this point I was getting peeved but Ryan's roommate was also doing a killer job at talking up Ryan so it was hard to stay annoyed at someone who was apparently as awesome as the Ryan being described. A couple days later, Ryan dm'ed me on instagram. I was surprised since I thought he had no interest being friends but I responded and my doubt that Ryan wanted to be friends came down to about 80%. After that Ryan started dm'ing me every once in a while until I was like 100% sure he actually did want to be friends. In December 2016, my family went on a road trip and I decided to ask Ryan a question back on one of his DMs. He responded and a conversation started. For two weeks straight we held a conversation and basically wrote essays to each other and got to know each other pretty well. But I should mention that at this point, Ryan still was shy in person when we would run into each other at church. I forgot who initiated hanging out but we finally decided to and Ryan visited me in Burbank where I worked at the time. I left my scarf in his car so a few days later he was back to return it (he claims I did it on purpose, he is right). A couple days after that I took the train down to Downtown Santa Ana, I saw Ryan taking a bite out of an orange (peel on) and the rest is history.

The first time I "met" Becca was after a night service at our church when she first started attending. I put "met" in quotations because she was actually just talking to someone else while I very awkwardly stood there without introducing myself. A couple weeks later we went to Wursthaus in Santa Ana with a bunch of people and actually met for the first time. Becca will claim I didn't say anything to her that night... which is totally possible because I'm pretty awkward socially, but I had a ringer in my roommate, Chris, who did all the talking for me. I eventually messaged Becca on Instagram and we started this running conversation that lasted for literally weeks where we discovered our shared interests in music, books, nature, and our faith. There was one week she asked me for book recommendations so I brought her two and a week later she had already finished them both just in the time she was riding the city bus. I remember thinking (1) woah, I love that she reads and (2) she rides the bus way too much. Initially, I honestly thought that she was just going to be a really close friend and sister in Christ but I think as we talked more and more and I realized both how strong she is (as a woman and as a believer) and how much of an absolute weirdo she is, things changed quickly. I started making up absurd reasons to be driving through Burbank to come see her and then not to long after we started dating at a retreat for our church.... and then 5 days after that we bought tickets to go to Coachella together (because we're both super impulsive) and the rest is history. The last couple years have been a crazy ride-literally because she lived in LA without a drivers license for the first year we were dating-but I'm looking forward to years of Becca singing down the grocery aisles, concerts in LA, vegetable-based-pasta alternatives and ice cream. SO. MUCH. ICE. CREAM.