As many of you know, and for those that don’t, Ray and I had an interesting start to our relationship. In 2016, I was 26 years old and painfully single, with multiple terrible dates under my belt. Ever the masochist, I was doing my daily (multiple times daily - let’s be real) Tinder swiping, and I saw a profile picture pop up of a young man sitting in a bathtub full of bagels. I looked through a moderately bizarre collection of pictures, which included one of him as a old-timey weight-lifter. I was just about to swipe left, but then I said to myself: “Why not? What could it hurt? I’ve got nothing to lose.” and I swiped right. Lo and behold, that bagel-bather, who was operating under the name “Slayman” at the time, was a match. I decided to send the first message, as Tinder waits for no man (or woman), and the now infamous line that started it all was this: “So, Slayman, is that your Christian name?”. I dont remember what kind response I got, but I’m pretty sure it was positive. We arranged a date and when he showed up, he was not as bad as I expected, so I went along. One of the things I remember most clearly about the date was his constant winking. Almost every other sentence he spoke was followed by an eager wink. I thought to myself: “What is going on right now? Why does he keep winking at me so much? That’s weird, but I guess it’s not the worst thing in the world.” Later on, when I thought the date was over, Ray spotted a giant Whole Foods down the street, and asked me if I wanted to go shopping with him. I agreed, for some reason. At this point, I was becoming sort of wary of his weirdo schtick, fantasizing about heading home, and texting my best friend repeatedly. I kept thinking about how strange it was that I was following around a relative stranger in a grocery store, but it appeared that to him, it was totally normal. When we left and I walked him back to his car, he planted a kiss right on me, I walked away shocked, and he’s been growing on me ever since.