We met the old fashioned way. With a swipe. But not ours. Mark's nephews, armed with the unshakeable confidence only teenage boys possess, took it upon themselves to scroll through their uncle's dating app and decide, on his behalf, that Jeremy was worth a shot. And those two kids deserve a toast at this wedding.
We took things slowly. Or at least, slowly by gay dating standards, which is to say we moved at approximately the same pace as two normal adults who actually like each other would. It felt like something out of a Jane Austen novel, but it didn’t matter. After our first date, we both already knew that even if nothing came of it, the other was someone we wanted in our lives. But we kept that to ourselves — no one admits that after the first date.
Fast forward a couple of months and the relationship was quickly getting deeper. We came back home after a romantic dinner together and found a fresh bouquet of flowers on Mark’s doorstep. It was from an admirer. A very young, very local admirer who had been “stopping by” regularly to “say hi”.
Mark blushed. Jeremy scowled.
But standing there looking at the flowers, we both realized that we were ready for the next level. While we weren’t ready to say it yet, we could tell the train had left the station. We were falling in love with each other. And while saying those three words would take another month or two, we both couldn’t get enough of each other.