We met in June of 2020 at a rooftop party that most definitely should not have been happening. The world was on lockdown and everyone seemed to be following the mandate rules, except for us and our pack of rowdy friends. We were both in our early 20's, had just moved to the city, and weren't going to let a pandemic ruin our Chicago experience. This story is best told from our perspectives...

Jessica’s Perspective

I had just finished a long and exhausting day of work and I couldn't wait to throw on Netflix. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go out to a party. However, my friend Cait (bridesmaid shoutout, woot woot) convinced me otherwise. Within 8 minutes of her call, I was all dressed up and in an uber with hair covered in dry shampoo. As I walked into the party I immediately noticed Colin and thought, "Oh, he is Hot..." However, at that same moment, he was Facetiming someone else, so I thought maybe he already had a girlfriend (this will be brought up later in Colin’s perspective)...Regardless, I decided I had no choice but to investigate the situation.

Naturally, the next thing I did was recruit our mutual friend, Jack Castle, to find out what Colin's deal was. Despite Jack being the drunkest person at the party and taking a much longer than anticipated amount of time to snoop, he eventually got the job done (thank you Jack!). I wasn't sure what exactly Jack had told Colin, but the next thing I knew, he was standing right next to me with the biggest smile on his face and said "Hi, I'm Colin! What's your name?"

After that, we spent hours chatting and getting to know each other. When it came time to leave, I asked for his number and then promptly hopped into an uber with my girls, giggling the whole way home. The next day, after playing it cool of course, I sent Colin my first text letting him know that I had a great night and that I loved meeting him. And the rest is history!

Colin's Perspective

My version of events are a bit different than Jessica’s. I was facetiming my best friend, Andrew Burnett, when Jess walked in. I noticed her right away and was immediately nervous to talk to her. To calm my nerves, I was waiting for some liquid courage to kick in before going up to her when my friend Jack stumbled up to me saying, “dude, this girl over there keeps asking if you’re single or not. Do with that information what you will.” Now encouraged, I finally approached Jess, unable to hide my smile, and introduced myself: “Hi! I’m Colin. What’s your name?”

After a full evening of chatting and hitting it off, Jess had to rush to an uber with her friends. In the frenzy, she asked for my phone number. The next morning I woke up early to look and see if Jess had texted me, and of course, she had not. That’s when I started to really kick myself and I remember thinking, “Why did I not get her number??” Rookie mistake. A couple of brutal hours passed by and I finally received a text message from an 847 number and I knew there was only one person that phone number could have belonged to…Now all I had to do was convince her to go out with me.