I’m a bit of a homebody. I enjoy spending time out and about with my friends, family, and colleagues, but left to my own devices, I also like my alone time at home, for things like reading, playing games, etc. That’s partially why I felt I wasn’t out there finding a partner, but also, I wanted to find someone the “old-fashioned way.” I had heard so many “horror stories” about dating apps, that I thought you couldn’t pay me enough to wade into those waters. But sometime close to midnight on December 31st, 2019, I decided that I was going to take control of my story, and 2020 would be a year of new experiences! I guess I wasn’t exactly wrong.
Ashana and I should be poster children for dating apps like Bumble. I made my dating profile that New Year’s Eve, choosing photos I liked and writing a thoughtful, honest bio about myself. Within my first week on the app, Ashana and I had matched and started sending messages, eventually moving to texting. It was clear that at least with the written word, we had some things to say to each other. We decided we should try out a date in real life as well. Ashana suggested a few places, and we settled on Tea & Victory, a café that had hundreds of board games available for customers to play. We thought some structured distraction through one of the games would be helpful with first date jitters. Little did we know that wasn’t going to remotely be an issue. We arranged to meet up on January 10th, a Friday after work, at 6 PM.
We met up and said hello, ordered coffee and tea, then found a booth to settle in, planning to ask the employees about a good two-player board game at some point. We started talking about many different things, had some great laughs and some thought-provoking discussions. I could tell we were both enjoying the conversation, to the point where neither of us got up to ask about games, get more drinks, or even use the restroom. The waiter then announced last call for food / drinks from the café, but I was confused – they weren’t supposed to close the kitchen until 11 PM… We checked the time and sure enough, we’d been talking for 5 hours straight! I don’t think I can recall another time in my whole life where I’ve spoken to anyone for that long, uninterrupted. I knew then that I had to spend more time with her, to see if it was a fluke or whether that’s just how compatible we really were!
The next several weeks were filled with fun activities and delicious food. We saw movies, tried new restaurants together, cooked together, and went to a couple museum exhibits. That last one led to a lasting hobby of ours – we now build / collect Lego sets together, after seeing an amazing exhibit of Lego used to create art – sculptures, recreations of famous paintings, and installations that blurred the lines between nature and plastic bricks. Was there anything else eventful happening in 2020? Oh right, there was that one other thing the whole world started to deal with too. I am forever thankful that we met when we did, as we had just enough time to get the first couple dozen dates on the books before pandemic lockdowns began. We made the decision that there was enough interest to keep seeing each other, so we had to transition to lots of “at home” dates very quickly – and we found we quite enjoyed cooking as a team!
Unbeknownst to me, at some point in those first months, Ashana then decided to make me a wonderful homemade dinner around May 4th – the unofficial Star Wars holiday – and themed the entire evening around my favorite franchise. Even though she hadn’t seen any of the movies yet, she knew how much I enjoyed it, so she went all out to surprise me. I didn’t tell her until much, much later, but I first knew I loved her that night – I loved how happy she made me, and I saw then how much she already cared about me too.
Before long, I found myself shopping around and picking out a diamond, putting together my thoughts for an engagement ring. Knowing how special Ashana is to me, I wanted everything to have the personal touch, so I made sure the design of the ring itself would be unique. I also decided to try something else I’d never done before, and with the help of my dad and his woodworking partner, I designed and built the hardwood ring box which I used to propose to Ash in November 2021. We went to Austin to attend the wedding of our friends (shout-out to John and Daniel!), and I arranged for my not-so-secret photographer (another shout-out, this time to Sarah!) to meet us at the Zilker Park Botanical Gardens. There, in front of a small waterfall, I made the best decision of my life and asked my favorite person to marry me.
What he said.