Once upon a time, in San Francisco, Joe and I were single. Like very single - in our 30's, dating duds. Feeling sorry for us, our buddy Sherm decided to play matchmaker and gave Joe my number. After five short weeks, Joe felt it was time to send me a text. It was basically one long sentence. No proofreading, and a wild amount of grammatical errors. Lucky for him, he was very handsome in his photos so I agreed to meet him at Palmer's on Fillmore. After a few drinks and a quick 7.5 years, Joe knew I was the one and popped the question.

Things were going great, or at least I thought they were. I was living with two of my best friends from college and working for the fire department. It really felt like I was peaking in life. Then out of nowhere my friend Brandon Sherman sent me a text and asked if I was interested in meeting one of his coworkers for drinks. My immediate response was “hard pass, Sherman” but two things happened. One, Sherman had recently started dating his wife, Misa, who seemed very nice and sweet, and two, he sent me a picture of Megan. I wrote back quickly “sure I’ll meet up for a drink“. Just four short weeks later I get another text from Sherman, very rudely asking why I had not reached out to Megan yet. To say I felt attacked would be an understatement. I didn’t want to look too desperate so I was planning on waiting the standard two months to reach out. Fortunately for me, this was also around the same time I had a trip to New York City for St. Patty’s Day. While there, I obviously lost my phone and developed a very painful limp which I was sure I had broken my foot, it also seemed like I was putting on weight at a rapid rate. Peaking Joe was starting to fall apart, I was in no condition to meet up with anyone. But then Lady Luck turned things around. I was able to track down my phone, which someone was nice enough to drop off at a bar, and my foot was starting to feel better. I knew it was a sign, I needed to clean up my life, and I needed to text Megan. I returned to SF a new man, still a bit puffy and with a small limp, but now I had a date with Megan for a drink at a bar, and just like that, nothing was ever the same. Fast forward 8 short years and here we are. A modern-day romance.