Anyone who knows me knows I’m quite traditional, never the first to adapt to new technology and definitely not big into social media. So, when my mom suggested my sister, Meredith, and I try dating apps, I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t until she challenged us to see who could set up the most dates that I became interested. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I didn’t make it very far as Preston was my first date.
Our first date consisted of Preston sweating a lot and giving me a dirty look after I answered his ‘where’d you go to high school’ question with ‘Marist.’ After a very awkward (and sweaty) side hug, we parted and I went to Greece on vacation for the next couple of weeks. Preston made sure to keep up with me while I was there and as soon as I returned, he asked if I wanted to get together again.
Conveniently, we both happened to be at Lake Hartwell that next weekend. Me, with my family celebrating my brother’s birthday and Preston, “supervising” Brendan and his friends with TJ. Preston asked if I wanted to come over to his lake house, and my mom encouraged me to go (what? we'd only met once…). When I got there, he walked me down to the dock and we talked all night. I knew then that he'd be sticking around for a while. The lake house is where everything really started.
Things started to get interesting towards the end of the summer when I learned that he didn’t actually live in Atlanta like he had said and instead lived in Charlotte. I had just graduated college and wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, especially not a long distance boyfriend. However, he assured me it wouldn’t be long distance because he’d be driving back every weekend to visit his mom anyways.
So, for the next several months, we did long distance, either with Preston driving to Atlanta for the weekend or us meeting in the middle, most times at the lake. We also spent several weekends in Greenville and Asheville, which remain two of our favorite places to visit. During the weekends Preston was in Atlanta, I spent quite a bit of time at the Furry house getting an education in football.
At the beginning of 2019, Preston decided it was time to look for a new job. He looked at options in Charlotte and Atlanta before going to Houston “just to check it out.” Well, checking it out turned into an opportunity he couldn’t pass up and onto Houston he went.
The next year of our relationship was spent traveling back and forth between Houston and Atlanta, with a few trips to meet in Asheville, Charleston, New York, and of course the lake in between. While I didn’t arrive in Houston with the best view of the city, Preston worked hard to change that through every one of my weekend trips. He planned dinners at fun restaurants, found a yoga studio for Saturday classes, and took me to all of the art museums in the city. Towards the end of 2019 and after many well-planned weekends by Preston in Houston, I was convinced to start looking for jobs.
In May 2020 and in the height of COVID, my parents and I made the drive to Texas. Prior to moving, Preston and I discussed at length our different apartment options, ultimately deciding to go with the smaller, more cost effective option since we’d both be going into the office every day and out a lot on the weekends. Well, I did not step foot into an office until Summer 2021 and the city didn’t really reopen until several months prior. This made for a full immersion experience of learning to live together. Preston quickly learned how annoyingly anal I am about maintaining a clean kitchen & living area and l learned how he likes to keep his clothes in the dryer for 3 days. Ultimately, we landed somewhere in the middle, where I learned to accept clothes in the dryer for 1-2 days and he accepted cleaning the kitchen before Friday.
After a year in our tiny apartment, we moved down the street to a rental house to continue building our life together in Houston, just with a bit more space. After ~2 years in Houston, it’s very apparent to me how moving to an unknown place has brought us closer than I thought possible. With no family nearby, Preston has become the person I can rely on to support me through anything. I can’t wait until we are officially family!
First Meeting: Chido & Padre’s
What do you do when your life is sideways? When you are living at home for the first time in 6 years, working 100 hours a week, and not taking care of yourself. I searched for a distraction. I needed to escape my reality. I needed an hour to be a normal person again. To forget that the world I had known my whole life was gone forever. So I hopped on a dating app searching for an excuse to do something normal again. Just so happened a good looking blonde girl happened to match with me, and she displayed poor enough judgement to actually go on a date with me.
Fast forward to our date. I’m nervous, sweating more than probably I should be, but also rocking my favorite mint green goodwill polo. Mexican food was an interesting choice for a first date, and I’m resisting ordering what I really want for fear of the inevitable spilling of sauce that will occur. I sit down (now definitely sweating too much) with Madison and we start to make small talk. Typical stuff. “Where are you from? What do you do for a living?” All pretty generic first date conversation until we get to where each of us went to high school. Both of us being from Atlanta, I wondered where she went. She tells me “Marist”, and I wish I could’ve seen the face I made. I’m pretty sure I looked at her like she had said something incredibly offensive, but I genuinely had no idea how she could have been telling the truth. It’s not a big school and I’d never seen this girl before, but she’s younger so I guess it makes sense we didn’t know each other. I was too busy hanging with the boys in high school anyway.
We somehow manage to make it through the rest of the date without me completely scaring her off (Probably some red flags but whatever), and I don’t remember any out of the ordinary spills. As we leave, I give her the awkward ass out, side hug and tell her we should do this again sometime. I let her know that I live in Atlanta and that I’d like to see her again sometime soon. I head home infatuated with Madison, but realistically knowing she probably won’t be trying to hang out again anytime soon. Whelp, jokes on her. She, against her better judgement, decided she would hang out with this ATLien again. Now about that….
Charlotte
No better way to kick off a relationship than a little lie, right? So when I told Madison that I lived in Atlanta it wasn’t a lie per se. I was living in Atlanta that week. However, I also did happen to have a job and apartment in Charlotte. Eventually I was called back, and I went back to Charlotte, my apartment, and my job. I hadn’t known Madison that long, so I’m not quite sure what she thought when I started sending her SnapChats of my life in Charlotte. This was the start of the distance portion of our relationship.
Madison wasn’t looking to start a first job in conjunction with starting a long distance relationship, but I liked her. So we kept hanging out when I would come back to Atlanta. We saw each other a good bit for two bankers in a long distance relationship. We both worked a lot in our jobs, but made time for each other. Next thing you know, we are in a bit of an accidental long distance relationship (*Cue Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows”).ATL
For a number of reasons, I convinced my job to let me come work in the Atlanta office. Outside of commuting from Norcross to Midtown every day, this is great. I get to see Madison much more frequently, and our relationship is going well. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s significantly easier living in the same state as a significant other.
We hang out with her friends in Atlanta, we hang out with my Atlanta buddies, we are taking trips together, and we generally start to have a “normal” fun and loving relationship. But everyone knows “normal” isn’t my thing, and I’m pretty good at screwing up a good situation. Onto H-Town…
Houston
“I’m going to take a trip to Houston, but I’m definitely not going to take this job.” Whoops…. Well I did take the trip, and *spoiler alert* I took the job. It was a great opportunity for me, and I had worked hard to get to this place in my career. However, as excited as I was about my new career path, it tore me apart to know that I would be leaving Atlanta as our relationship was blossoming. I loved my relationship with Madison, and we had finally reached a point where we were in the same place, and seeing a lot of each other. We were having so much fun, and here I am actively trying to blow it up. After some hard conversations, Madison was gracious enough to let me follow my dream in what I wanted to do, and another curve in our winding relationship road began.
“Just so you know, I’m not moving there. I hate Houston.” I’m not sure what Madison thought Houston looked like prior to visiting, but I’m pretty sure it was some sort of cross between Odessa and the 6th circle of Hell. She wasn’t too far off on the heat aspect, but over a number of visits to Houston, Madison came to appreciate (tolerate first) it, and we continued to enjoy being in a relationship together. Eventually an opportunity came along career wise that made sense for her, and Madison ended up in H Town.
Houston Pt. 2
Happily ever after right? Not exactly. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that write on their wedding website about how their relationship is pure bliss, and how they have never had a difficult second because of their true love. Whenever I hear about perfect relationships like this I laugh. Shout out to everyone in one of these, but I’m of the opinion that a real relationship is strong because of the things the two of you get through together as opposed to how easy it is.
Moving to a new city is hard on anyone. Madison was lucky enough to try moving to Houston in a lovely global pandemic. Facemasks and Houston summer were a hell of an entrance. One pandemic relationship timeline later, we were engaged. A few bumps and bruises on the path there, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way….