On October 24th, 2021, I brought a friend to a church service in Providence, RI and we arrived way too early. The worship band had just finished running their set for the morning, so we sat down in the rows of seats to wait about a half hour for others to arrive and church to start. Just as we were about to exit our seats to snag coffee from upstairs, Elijah (who I later learned had been coerced by a pastor to “greet the new people”) stepped in our path- “Hello! Who are you?”


Within another week or two, I received a Facebook friend request from a pencil named Elijah, followed by a sweet (long) DM inviting us to various upcoming church events as well as an offer to grab coffee together. I met Elijah for coffee the next morning and we chatted for about 3 hours. The weeks to follow were the start of a great friendship, build upon a love for music, jokes, God and much more.


Towards the end of that fall season, I began to pick up on the fact that Elijah might be interested in being more than friends. Wanting to be considerate, I communicated to him one day that I was not looking to be anything more. He received this graciously and even accepted my invitation to attend a Christmas concert with me that same week (interesting move, Lauren). Our friendship continued to grow over the course of the next several months, with no expectations attached.


The following winter/spring of 2022, Elijah and I didn’t see each other in person super frequently. He was in Providence, RI working towards his PhD and I was in Bridgewater, MA almost halfway through my Masters program. We did, however, have ongoing conversations via text, in which he would send a relatable meme and I would follow up with photos of crafts that I’d completed with the preschoolers at my internship. Gradually, I began to realize a level of disappointment if a day passed and I did not receive a message from Elijah.


One week, we decided it had been long enough and we were going to catch up in person. We settled on watching a movie together. I suggested my apartment in Bridgewater and he offered to make and bring dinner. Long story short- I was excited for this and planning to revisit a previous conversation at the time of this hangout, while Elijah was convicted by a mutual friend that he may have accidentally planned a date with the girl he’d agreed to remain friends with.


Elijah found himself in a predicament, during an already too- stressful time at school. So, in true Elijah fashion, he prayed. “God, I may have made a mistake. I’m going to correct this, but for now, would you please stall this?”
Well, I (blissfully unaware of any of this) became quite sick with laryngitis and informed Elijah that our plans for dinner and a movie on Tuesday might have to be postponed. He responded quickly, something to the effect of “Oh no! I’m sorry. Let’s just go ahead and cancel. Give you plenty of time to recover.”


Awwwww. Fine.


The following week rolled around and, again, in true Elijah fashion, he forgot to rectify his messy situation! After receiving an inquiry from me about our rescheduled plans, Elijah responded with a kind clarification about his intentions, specifying that he did not mean to push me into something that felt like a date. He was surprised to hear back my thoughts may have changed.


We did not do dinner and a movie that Tuesday. Instead, Elijah drove up to Bridgewater so that we could go on a multi- hour walk and talk-on-a-bench together. We confused each other even more at the bench (see proposal photos below). You see, I felt bad for flustering Elijah so much and said to him I dont have these huge feelings for you (yikes). Meanwhile, he expressed to me that hed spent the past however-many-months building up walls and might not feel the same way anymore.


SO. Now that Elijah knew that I liked him but actually not, and I knew that he didn’t like me as much after getting to know me for the past 6 months... we didnt really know where to go. It took us another month to actually start dating because we both felt the other had some soul searching to do. Nevertheless, we began aggressively hanging outBut we did, and ever since May 23rd, 2022 Elijah and I have been on the best journey of learning and loving each other and becoming better people because of each other.