Vince: So for those of you that don't know the story of how Viv and I met, it wasn't via Tinder or any other dating app but Snapchat did play a huge role. The short and thicc of it is Boy meets Girl, kinda. It was more of Boy goes to party, takes picture with Friend, Girl sees picture and tells Friend that Boy is cute, Friend tells Boy that Girl thinks he's cute, Girl adds Boy on Snapchat, Boy's roommate says he needs to define the relationship, Boy and Girl start dating for 2 months, THEN Boy meets Girl. The long and also thicc of it is as follows:

It was the winter of 2016 and Annie, a college suitemate of Viv's, was showing photos of her hometown friends. One of the photos was of Annie and I sitting on a couch, smiling at the camera. Viv saw the photo and asked Annie about me: was I single, what my deal was, etc. These questions piqued Annie's interest in playing matchmaker for her friends so she shot me a text saying "my suitemate thinks you're cute." Now, I've known Annie since high school and she is the closest thing to a Disney Princess anyone can be (worked at a cupcake shop, sang in the choir, took on the role of the matriarch of the friend group). Armed with this perception of her, I didn't readily accept her proposition. Cautious in my response, I hit her with the, "does she have a name?" to which Annie readily answered, "yes, it's Viviana." Pondering it over some more, I sent one more line of inquiry, "does she have a face?" She got to see a photo of me, only fair that I get to see a photo of her. Annie then sent me a Snapchat of Viv and I was floored, this girl was as cute as a button and found me attractive! I then told Annie "give her my snapchat username so i know it's real." 15 minutes pass, then 30 minutes, then an hour. I called her bluff, thinking it was maybe all manufactured as some joke. Then a notificiation dinged on my phone, "A new user added you!" Viv then sent me a message on the app, "Hey! It's Viviana (cute monkey emoji)" Our first conversation was about her explaining that she added me so I could help tutor her for her Spanish courses, that's what I call a Romantic language. From there we began to text one another and eventually Skype at the end of my Spring Break and beginnning of hers. As I watched the Skype call ring to call her at about 10PM on a Saturday night, it occurred to me that I had never heard Viv's voice before. Here I was, having talked to her every day for over a month and I couldn't put a voice to her face.

She answered the Skype call and the first 5 minutes or so were painfully awkward, having conversations face-to-face is far more difficult than when hiding behind a keyboard full of emojis to convey emotion. After the stagnant beginning of the call, we began to talk about anything and everything. It felt natural, like catching up with your best friend you hadn't seen in years. By the time we decided to end the call, it was 4:30AM and I had an alarm set for 5:15AM to catch a flight back to West Point. When I got back to school, it was more of the same constant communication with Viv. This became routine to me but not to my two roommates, Steve and Sam. They had become familiar with who I would Skype call with in my free time: family and friends. Viv's face was a new one to them and a seemingly ubiquitious one at that, I was Skyping her just about every night. At one point, Steve sits me down and asks "Who is this girl and why have you never introduced her to Sam and I?" I explain how we met and he nods his head and goes back to his studies. Later that night I'm Skyping Viv as usual and Steve, in the background of my camera, asks us "what is your guys' relationship?" Viv and I had never discussed that and it was brought up so abruptly. We looked at each other and both kinda shrugged the question off. Steve told me that Viv and I need to figure that out before one of us gets hurt because we hadn't determined our exclusivity. After some quick talking, Viv and I coined the term "pre-dating" and I offered that up to Steve as an answer. Wrong answer. "that's not a real thing, either you are or you ain't.", Steve flatly stated. Viv was still on the call, we were both practically getting scolded for not following unwritten rules of the dating world. I then turn to the camera so Viv can see my face and say "I'm down if you are." A soft smile spread across Viv's face and she responded with two words, "I'm in." That was March 28th, 2016.

We didn't physically meet until almost 3 months later in early June. I had some leave at home lined up after spending a few weeks training in the interior of Alaska. Viv had an internship with Boeing down in St. Louis for the summer. We figured this was the best time to meet as it was only a 4 hour drive from Chicago to St. Louis. I told my mom and dad that I was going to drive 4 hours to spend a 3-day weekend with my girlfriend of 2.5 months whom I've never met. They processed the information, approvingly nodded, and said "take your dad's car, it gets good gas." Surprised they would just send me off on a solo road trip in the name of love, I asked why they weren't all that concerned and they told me, "You're an adult, you're capable of making your own decisions and this seems like one that's worth it to you." I jetted down I-55 with The Life of Pablo as my soundtrack and stopped off at a flower shop before arriving where Viv's intern housing was at University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL). It was a Friday afternoon when I texted her that I had arrived, she dropped me a pin where she was parked. Viv was waiting with her friend Jessie for his family to pick him up for the long weekend, sitting in her parked car and jamming out to some rad tunes (probably Beyoncé). I can still see it all so vividly: the air was humid as it was June in Missouri and I walked through a mostly empty parking lot until I saw a little red car and heard the bass of a car's sound system. As I neared her car, Jessie spotted me in the rear-view mirror and pointed at it saying, "there's Vince!" I could hear the driver's side car door open and see Viv's white converse hit the concrete. As the sound of her running footsteps grew louder, and I've never told Viv any of this but time slowed down for me. My heart was beating fast and my grip around the flowers felt weak and shaky.

All that flooded my mind was, I have never met this girl. I don't know what it feels like to hold her in my arms or have the scent of her shampooed hair flood my nostrils. I have done a variety of adrenaline-inducing activities in my life that people would consider nerve-wracking: hike Alaskan mountains with moose running by, jump out of planes, zipline hundreds of feet over jungle canopy, lay perfectly still in 40 degree rain as others around you succumb to the cold, start an 8-page research paper an hour before it's due, you name it. But in regard to being nervous, all of these things pale in comparison to how I felt mere moments before meeting Viv. As dorky as it is, I still get butterflies thinking about that day almost 5 years ago. Anyways, back to the story. As Viv rounded the corner of the pickup truck, she then had a straight shot at me and accelerated into a full-on sprint. How she managed to do that with only about 10 feet of clearance, I'll never understand. As she was a few steps from me, she leapt into the air like a koala on the attack. With the bouquet of flowers in my hand, I succeeded in keeping my footing as I caught her and felt the embrace of the most snug hug I'd ever felt. The rest of the story is a history of goofy moments, traveling to different cities and countries, building friendships, revisiting the long-distance aspect that our relationship was born out of (thanks, Army), and genuinely enjoying one another's company. Some might think that for Viv and I it's "opposites attract": where i'm more of a zenned out, wave-riding guy and Viv subscribes to the school of thought that all things can be planned and executed with every variable accounted for. Despite how we may be as individual people, Viv and I are on the same wavelength on the things that matter. I know she's there for me even if I physically can't see her, she's the most rewarding part of my life, ella es mi luna y mis estrellas."