Chapter 1
Dave and I met online in 2009. He liked me because I was one of the few people on Plenty of Fish who didn’t have kids and had an MA, I liked him because he was one of the few people on Plenty of Fish who had a car and great grammar. It was friendship at first message.
Dave and I hung out a lot at first. Always really late at night (because I didn’t know how to sleep like a normal person) or at 1 pm when we’d take 2 hour lunches and hope not to get fired. It was sometime during the 3 months of friendship that I realized I really liked Dave. So like any totally cool, relaxed, normal adult person would do when their feelings change, I ran away to Scotland for 2 weeks and didn’t talk to him for 2 months after I got back.
I rationalized not being friends with Dave in a lot of ways starting with “he doesn’t believe in ghosts or UFOs, I spend most of my time ghost/UFO hunting, it’d never work” and ending with “he has a girlfriend, I’m sure, no he’s never said he does, but by now he must, he must be dating Vexxus1, whoever that hussy is!” Still, even with all those perfectly rational ideas of why we would never work out I stalked him on Facebook and Twitter, missing our daily chats.
It was sometime around the middle of august when I finally unblocked Dave from Gmail chat and started talking to him. Those dumb feelings started all over again and I did the most rational thing I could think of, I ran away to Toronto for a week. When I finally got back Dave asked me to come hang out on a Friday night. Thinking I had it all perfectly handled at this point I went. We watched a movie and around 1 am we looked at the moon through a telescope but couldn’t get the lenses to work right. I stayed until 6 in the morning, looking at the sky and watching movies, and then drove home. Dave texted me “come back! I got the lenses working!”, I texted “no!”. The next day Dave went to his friend’s wedding and, knowing I would be up at 2 am, called and asked if I wanted to come over and hang out. I went over and we hung out. Dave, a bit drunk, asked if I was still happy being single or if I ever got lonely. I lied and said I was never lonely and left. The next day I wrote a really long email, explaining to Dave that I really liked him but I’m a wimp and would never admit to this face to face. I sent the email and proceeded to get really drunk on Strong Bow. At some point I remember Dave tried to call me to talk about the email but instead I turned off my cell phone.
The next day Dave had written back, he wanted to talk about it, could I come over. Eventually my friend talked me into going. She had to come to my house and force me to go. We talked about nothing until finally I couldn’t take it anymore and tried to leave. To where? Who knows. I would have ran to Iceland at that point with how nervous I was feeling. Dave eventually told me he had feelings too and then, in what I still think is a hilarious move, Dave, ever the gentleman, asked how I felt about kissing. I lied to him and said I liked it and we have been together ever since. That was Labour Day Monday, September 7th, 2009.