So, Hi! I’m Sarah, the occasionally-blonde lady in the duo below:

The be-‘hawked ginger with the gorgeous eyes is my other half.

Although we’ve been dating for a while now, the photo above was taken about 2 months before we started dating, but you can’t tell can you? I was pathetically smitten with her by this point.

We actually met on Facebook. Yes, it happens (apparently). We both RSVP’d to a Pride picnic put on by a local LGBTQ group last June and, although neither of us actually went to the picnic she saw me on the guest list and added me as a friend. She said she thought I was cute 🙂 and, obviously, she is cute, so of course I accepted her request.

I stalked her for a month before messaging her casually on Facebook and bumming an invite to a party. We started hanging out that weekend and rarely went more than three days without seeing each other.

Now, at that point I wasn’t “out” publicly and wasn’t even comfortable with a label yet, so had I deflected her question about whether I was gay or straight. However, I knew within a few days that I was interested in her, so when she confided in me that she was interested in my friend, I died inwardly a little bit. But I played the “bigger person” role and encouraged the two of them to see if they fit together. They decided they didn’t, but continued to hang out and have an otherwise “it’s complicated” relationship, all the while I was moony-eyed and ridiculously jealous.

I went away to school for a month during that time, but before I went, I admitted to Holly that I was interested in her, which was not something she was ready to hear. While I was away, I stepped back a little bit from our friendship to see if I could reign it back to “just friends” territory. I was dramatically love-sick (seriously, I lost 12 pounds in 4 weeks), did loads of self-reflecting, smoked way too many cigarettes, and, although my feelings didn’t change, I found my way back to a friendship with her.

During this time, Holly introduced one of her guy friends to me saying he was a great listener and someone who might help me work through everything going on. He also happened to express some interest in me as well, not exactly ideal in the current situation, but he really was a great listener. Plus, nothing is better medicine for a rejected spirit than admiration. So I spent much of that time unloading my lovesick heart on him. Although I couldn’t stir up romantic feelings for him, we got pretty close.

One night, this gentleman had invited me over and I had decided that I needed to (once again) clarify that I didn’t have feelings for him and was still only interested in Holly. Well, that evening, the redhead in question invited me out for a drink (we were careful friends at this point). I brought the gentleman along and we all proceeded to drink a bit too much until the wee hours of the morning.

Now, when I get tipsy, I dance and flirt with whoever is handy. I’d been trying to avoid my lady all evening as also get emotional and far too open with those emotions, and so I ended up dancing and flirting with this guy (Yeah, the one I was “supposed” to have reminded of my LACK of feelings for earlier in the evening. Well-played, Sarah). Suddenly, in what would soon become the climax of this Romcom-worthy story, she pulls me aside for a late night, alcohol emboldened chat. She explains to me that she doesn’t like that I’m suddenly all up in his business, to which I protested, “You didn’t want me!” We shouted and pushed and pulled at each other until the forgotten and ill-used gentleman found me and took me home. I cried the whole way there and proceeded to sit on the curb and cry for another 2 hours apologizing and proclaiming, “It was her! it was always her!”

Dramatic right? The only thing missing was rain and sad music.

The next morning, with thinly veiled terror, I asked her if she meant everything she said the night before. She said she did and I said, “So…what do we do now?”

Soft guitars played, butterflies fluttered, and we rode a unicorn over a double rainbow into the sunset together.

So, after dancing around as friends and more than friends for two months, on September 2nd, I was out to my family and friends, we were “official”, and had become that annoying Facebook couple that you all hate. Six months after that, we were looking at rings and trying to decide whether or not to elope.

The time between has been a mixture of joy, pain, and the kind of love that makes you stop and say, “is this for real??”

Yeah, it actually is.