Finally!

“I think your mom was my math teacher” were some of the first words uttered by Alex to Chris on the first day they met at an Orr Fellowship event. Chris, of course, knew nothing about the social media stalking that Alex had completed upon seeing his name on the list of upcoming Orr Fellows. She thought it sounded familiar. As it turns out, Alex and Chris’s lives had been running on parallel tracks for almost their entire existence up until that point when they finally and inevitably crossed. They knew the same people, grew up in almost the same place, even had siblings in the same grade. One might be compelled to argue that it was fate. Fast forward 4 years to 2020, the height of the Covid pandemic. Alex and Chris had built a strong and deep friendship, picking up right where it left off after Alex returned from a 6 month stint in South America. It was at that point that Alex began to realize that the feelings she had for Chris were inescapable and more than just friendship. She then presented Chris with the idea of perhaps taking the friendship to a new level, to which Chris replied that he was not interested in jeopardizing the friendship in that way (read: I like you as a friend). A couple of months later after another attempt at convincing Chris had failed, Alex decided that it was a hopeless endeavor and banished Chris to the friend zone forever. Or so she thought. In early 2021, Chris began to recognize how frequently he wished Alex was present for various situations in his life. “This would be fun if Alex were here” was a pervasive thought for him at the time. And so after *much* internal deliberation, he decided that he would ask Alex on a date. But he wasn’t going to call it a date, because he wanted to mess with her a bit and knew the ambiguity would bother her immensely. Alex received a text from Chris, who asked if he could call her. “Weird,” Alex thought, “why would he text me to ask me if he can call, when he could’ve just called?” Chris rang, and asked her if she wanted to get dinner one night next week. “Weird,” Alex thought again, “he could’ve easily asked me that over text message…” As the day approached, Alex reached back out and asked for details. “We have a reservation at Livery at 6pm. I’ll pick you up at 5:45,” Chris said. It was at this point Alex started to get frustrated. This was shaping up to look conspicuously like a date, and she told herself she had closed the door on any potential relationship with Chris. She could not wait to give him a piece of her mind when they went to dinner. As promised, Chris knocked on the door at 5:45pm that day and walked her to the car. More suspicious date behavior. They arrived at the restaurant and sat down for dinner. Alex was fuming and Chris was having a great time. Alex kept waiting for Chris to explain himself, and decided that if he did not acknowledge this “date” by the end of the night, she would. Dinner came and went, and they made small talk the entire time. Chris was enjoying the conversation almost as much as he was enjoying making her sweat. After dinner, Chris asked if Alex felt like doing anything else and suggested a local speakeasy bar that they had been to a few times. Alex agreed, and a few minutes later they were walking into the Commodore. They ordered drinks, and sat down in a couple of chairs in the corner. “So I was thinking,” Chris began, “that we should try giving dating a shot.” And the rest was history.