"We were always in the same friend group in New Orleans, but we were more like casual pals. Not super close, just always around the same people." "First time I ever saw her she didn’t say a word to me and I was fascinated by who she was. After a year or two of just seeing each other socially, Covid happened and our dinner parties got much more intimate." "Right..During Covid, our friend’s birthday is in April, so it was right when everything shut down. We did a brunch Zoom for his birthday and Peter showed up with a brand new mustache. I remember looking at my screen and thinking… dang, Peter looks good. Naturally I started a sidebar conversation with one of my girlfriends during the Zoom and said something like, “Peter’s hot, right?” Which was funny because I had never really thought about him like that before, since we were always just friends in the group. So I decided I was going to pursue that." "I reached out to Alyssa fairly certain she’s seen the street art all around the quarter and asked where the best pieces are, like an idiot not inviting her. Turns out she didn’t yet and responded something like 'oh no I haven’t seen it but I’m down to go check it out though'... very cleverly setting us up for our first date." "Peter was not exactly picking up on my hints at first. During Covid all the bars and restaurants in the French Quarter and on Frenchman Street were boarded up like they do for hurricanes, and local artists had painted incredible murals all over the wood panels. He was asking where the best ones were and I told him I hadn't seen them yet, and I fully thought he was about to ask me to go with him…but he didn’t. So I invited myself." "On the bike ride down, I was about 40 yards behind her and tried calling her name to no avail, turns out she knew I was there and was just playing hard to get." "I heard him..Had to keep him sweating. We biked around Frenchman Street and the French Quarter looking at all the art. At one point we even stopped to get a close up look at the collapsed Hard Rock Hotel in the Quarter, in hindsight feels like a very chaotic first date activity. But it worked." "I really didn’t want to mess up a friendship in the group by dating, so even though the hints weren’t super noticeable to a dumb man, I’m so happy she put the work in to pursue me." "Don’t forget the part where you made me say I love you first, too!"