“Wow, he’s so handsome and loves his cat.”
Swipe right.

Him: “Hey there, it says in your bio you love John Mulaney and breweries, which is so funny, because so do I.”

Me: “Yeah. I love comedy and checking out local spots like breweries. Do you have any favorites around here?”

Him: “Nope, but I can definitely point you in the direction of some great stand-up specials. Maybe we could meet up at one of your favorite breweries, and I can tell you about some other comics you might like?”

Me: “That sounds fun to me.”

Him: “Ah, well, I am leaving town for the week, so yeah.”

Me: …

“Well, not sure what I did wrong, but those tables turned kind of fast. Oh well.”

Several weeks later-

Him: “Hi there, how have you been?”

Me: “Good, how about you?”

Him: “Fine. Want to get drinks at that brewery you like this week?”

Me: “Sure :)”

At Red Cypress

I pulled up in my Jeep after a long day in American Eagle jeans, a T-shirt with a trendy cutout at the neck, and white Converse. I was going to be a cool girl. I was in grad school, I was cute, and I was going on one of my first real dates as an adult. I got this.

I was still sitting in my car, trying to get into character as “cool girl,” when I spotted him walking in. I froze. I panicked. I was already fashionably late, and now I couldn’t move. I sat there for at least ten minutes of real time and what felt like hours of anxious brain time. Finally, I took a breath, opened the door, and walked in with my chin held high, a mental wall between “cool girl” and total panic.

“Wow, he is really cute. Like, out-of-my-league cute.”

He said, “Hi, I’m Joe, I love Star Wars,” and then proceeded to explain to me why Star Wars is cool for the next thirty minutes. I listened, and then suddenly it was my turn to talk.

In what was, for me, a signature act of anxiety masquerading as confidence, I blurted out, “I am very ambitious, and you should probably know that. I’m going to be a therapist, which I know people often hate, but I’m at the point where you can take me as I am or leave, and that’s fine with me.”

Somehow, he seemed unfazed and, shockingly, more interested. He ordered us another round. We talked more about Star Wars, mental health and therapy, our hopes and dreams, childhood, and probably a dozen other topics not meant for first dates. It was easy. We stayed talking for more than an hour after the brewery closed. It felt like we were in a flow state.

Then a terrifying thought hit me: This is it. This is the person you’re going to marry.

I stood up and said, “It’s time for us to go home,” and began swiftly moving back toward the Jeep.

He followed, looking a little confused, and said, “Bye, I guess,” turning toward his truck.

My last remaining scrap of “cool girl” blurted out: “So no kiss, huh?”

We kissed, and my panic returned. I got in my car, and we drove home, probably both assuming we had done something wrong. He was either thinking I was cool and mysterious or a complete psycho.

Shockingly, we had a second date. Then a third. And after a year and a half, we were still together.

Things had gotten harder, though. I was graduating from my program, and he was caught between leaving Disney and figuring out what came next. We were young, stupid, and wildly ungrateful for what we had. So we called it off.

End of Act I

Cue the post-breakup depression montage, the bad dates montage, and the “get your life together by accidentally starting multiple companies” montage.

Many months later, deep into the pandemic, a text from Joe popped up on my phone.

Him: “You’ve been on my mind lately.”

Me: “Maybe it’s in the air. I’ve been thinking about you, too.”

Friends: “He wants to get back together.”

Me: “He literally said he never gets back together with exes. ‘If you broke up, it was for a reason.’ He wants to be friends.”

Him: “I’ll be in town soon. Want to get pizza with me at Lazy Moon?”

Me: “Sure.”

Cut to Lazy Moon.

Him: “Great to see you again.”

Me: “You too. How have you been?”

Him: “Good. And you?”

Me: “Good, can’t complain. How’s your pizza?”

Him: “Good. Gotta love Lazy Moon.”

Me: “Yeah, it’s so good. It’s great to be friends again.”

A charged silence.

Him: “I was watching this show recently where the main character says, ‘When you’re young, you think that everybody out there really, really gets you. But actually, only a handful of them do. All the people who like you despite your faults. And if you discard them, they will never come back. So when you meet those people, you should hold on to them. Really, really tightly. And don’t let them go.’ And it made me think of you.”

I was stunned. The rest of the evening became a blur. Suddenly, I was back home, telling my friends how it went and insisting that I was just glad we were friends again. They looked at me like I had lost my mind.

Friends: “He wants to get back together.”

I assured them that it was not it. He already knew what it was like to date me, and it had very clearly not gone well, so I figured he was just being nice and wanted to be friends.

Friends: “Mhmm. Sure.”

A few weeks later - I honestly don’t remember who said it first - one of us finally did:

“Let’s get back together.”

Me: “I would like to, but if we do this, we’re getting married. We’re really going for it. It sort of feels like the world is ending right now, and if it is, at least we can say we went for it.”

Him: “I agree.”

Eight months later, we visited Los Angeles to see where our first home together might be. The first time we dated, we had come to LA together, stayed at the Chateau Marmont, fallen a little in love with the city, and talked about how crazy it would be to live somewhere like that. For some possibly hairbrained reason, we decided to do it.

We found a place on Genesee Avenue in West Hollywood, where we lived for several years with our three cats, who did not agree to the roommate arrangement we had made on their behalf.

There were ups and downs, but relationally, we were steady. Joe worked on TV shows, at iconic comedy theaters, at historic movie studios, and at a premier comedy touring agency, while also beginning to perform regularly as a comedian himself. I started in a corporate role at a mental health company, earned my MBA at UCLA, continued growing my private practice, and eventually left corporate life to build that practice into its own mental health company. I graduated with my MBA and was accepted into a PhD program in digital health.

We had talked about getting married ever since getting back together, but money was always tight, and life kept moving fast. Somehow, four years passed.

Then, one lovely Saturday in November, he proposed.

Cue the wedding-planning montage. And the busy life in LA montage. And, the build-up to Act III.