After a crazy fall of dating mishaps, I was pretty much over dating. I was bored on my way home and decided to check my matches on Coffee Meets Bagel App just to pass time. I saw a cute boy on there named Tony and decided to message him. After exchanging four messages one asking if I was a "nice" or "mean" teacher, I agreed to meet up with him.

We agreed to meet at a pub in Capitol Hill called Union Pub. I have never been there, so I was excited to try a new place. I honestly don't remember what we talked about. I do remember we talked for two hours and I wanted to keep talking which was rare for me on a first meet up.

Tony reached out and asked if I wanted to go ice-skating. When we got to the sculpture garden the rink was closed, so I suggested we go to the Georgetown rink that I had been wanting to go to for a while. Tony said he was down, so we went and skated for hours. After we went ant got a glass of wine. Besides the fact that I was sleepy since it was 11pm, I also had a workout the next morning, so we split ways.

Right after we met, Covid hit and we all went into lockdown. We started hanging out every other weekend and enjoyed spending time cooking, drinking wine and watching the Great British Bake Off. We found out we were both passionate about food, travel and LOTR. After awhile it made since for us to live together since we were both working from home. We decided to make things official in June of 2021 in North Carolina and then moving to our own apartment in Bethesda and got a dog.

I've still yet to have a job I hated more than the one I had when I met Grayson. Near the start of 2020, I redownloaded a dating app I had reasonable success with earlier. Things were still crazy and hectic at work but figured I had enough time for the occasional random chat with a match. I didn't. I think we exchanged a grand total of 4 messages on Coffee Meets Bagel and our allotted match time was about to expire. She was really cute so I sorta just went for it and asked to meetup with her at a pub after work.

I picked one of my favorite pubs that was reasonably between us on the metro line, Union Pub. We sat and talked for two hours, mostly about our family, and got mildly lost when walking back to the metro. It was a way better than expected date but still a typical "let's get a drink date". When we decided to go out ice skating the following week though, I started to expect Grayson was someone really special. In a single night we went all the way from the Smithsonian statue garden (their rink had closed) to the Georgetown waterfront (their rink was thankfully open). Grayson on ice was one of the best things I've ever seen. We stayed out for a very, very, long time. I could only bring myself to suggest that we call it for the night when it was clear Grayson was going to pass out and fall asleep in front of her glass of wine at the local wine bar in Georgetown we went to.

It's actually difficult to find someone in the area who hasn't burnt out on doing the typical "DC things" but Grayson really shared my love for the city. We managed to get in alot of really great dates in the short time we had before the pandemic started. Beating her at a spelling bee, and making out next to a trashcan in the metro were a few of the many highlights. After the pandemic started, at one point we had not seen each other for over a week and that felt like the slowest week in my life. It was an easy decision to shack up together when we both found ourselves confined to working at home. 2020 was insane for the reasons you'd guess, but it also involved me moving to a new apartment and both of us getting new jobs in the same week. I often thought back on how screwed I'd be if I hadn't found Grayson during the pandemic- and how much more boring my days would be if I couldn't listen to her trying to manage a virtual classroom of 1st-graders daily from our living room. After living with her full time in Arlington, and then in Silver Spring, I knew I wanted to marry her. And preferably get a larger apartment. And a dog.