Once upon a time... just kidding! Kind of lol

It all started with a mutual friend we had back at Sacred Heart University in 2014 (10 years ago already!), our freshman year of college. One of my friends in my sorority at the time happened to know Joe from home. One day, while we were walking to visit her sister (who happened to live in the same building as Joe), a boy passed us and said hello to my friend. "Hey Joe!" she said, and I turned around to see who she was talking to. We locked eyes briefly before we turned away and he kept walking. "WOW, he's really cute," I said. "Yeah, that's my friend Joe from home." And guess what... nothing happened after that! LOL

A few weeks or so went by and I got a text from Joe talking about the event coming up. My friend had decided to set me up with him to take to our Draft-A-Date sorority event, and I gladly went along. Unfortunately, Joe and I had no classes together. We actually didn't even have classes in the same building, so we never saw each other around school. After that, we texted back and forth a few times but again, nothing came from it. Soon after, Joe actually got very sick and was out of school for almost a month. Due to the lack of communication and little interaction, I decided I should take another friend with me to this event, and I texted Joe to let him know.

Fast forward and one Friday evening I am waiting for the shuttle with my same friend who introduced me to Joe, to take me to the ferry, and what do you know... I look over and see a handsome figure crossing the street walking towards me and it is none other than Joseph John Alberts. At this point, it was slightly awkward because I had just uninvited him to my event, but we moved passed it and my friend left us as the shuttle pulled in. After the 15-minute ride, we grabbed our suitcases and started walking to the ferry. Joe was kind enough to carry my suitcase on board, and we made our way to the top floor where you can sit outside. It was still warm, the beginning of October, and this was when Joe opened up to me and pretty much told me his whole life story. He told me about karate and how he was a black belt, about his family and his dad who just had gotten knee surgery, about his roommates and all the drama that comes with living in a suite with 11 guys, and about the latest project he had presented about his peanut allergy. To this day, I still have a picture of the special nut-free cookie (it's actually at the bottom of the 'photos' tab!) that he offered me when I mentioned that I was hungry that day on the ferry. That was a lifestyle change I never thought I would need to make, and unlike so many of my friends who told me they "could never give up peanut butter", it couldn't have been an easier decision if it meant I could be with Joey.

Anyway, I digress. We had a really lovely hour and 15-minute ferry ride back to Long Island and once we departed, we went our separate ways, and again, nothing happened. Maybe a Snapchat picture here and there, but nothing changed. A week or so later, I decided to go home again on another Friday evening. This time I was waiting for the ferry alone trying to escape my own roommate/ sorority drama myself. Then, all of a sudden, as the shuttle for the mall pulled away, a figure appeared and... you guessed it... it was JOSEPH ALBERTS. When we both realized who the person was that we were looking at, we laughed but this time we got right into catching up. We couldn't stop talking the whole shuttle ride to the ferry, and the entire ferry ride home. And this time, I was complaining about someone I had been seeing (!! how funny). But, after telling Joe some recent things that had happened, he looked me in the eyes and said, "no no no, you deserve someone so much better, that will treat you the way you deserve", and I JOKINGLY replied, "yeah, like who?", and he said, "like me." Anyone who knows me, even just a little bit, knows that my face turned as RED as a tomato!! And anyone who knows Joe knows that he noticed and LAUGHED about it (he actually said, "Why is your face so red?" to which my face became even redder lol) And that night, after we said goodbye, I got a text from Joe asking if I was free on Saturday, to which I replied "as of right now, yes", and he responded, "good, because you're coming on a date with me", and the rest is history.

OH, I can't forget to add that I DID take Joe to my sorority event, and it was terribly boring. We hated every minute of it, but we had so much fun just because we were together. I even apologized for taking him to something so boring, and he told me, "That's okay, as long as I got to spend time with you it was worth it." The black and white picture in the 'photos' tab was taken right before we left for this event!