Seventeen months ago, I went on an online date with a girl named Madison. It was only my third date on the dating app Hinge. The first girl I went out with asked me who my favorite Disney princess was (she really did). She said I could text her the answer that night, since I wasn’t sure on the spot. That night, I responded with a joke that apparently didn’t land because I never heard from her again.
The second date was a simple coffee date in Wedgewood Houston where I did all the talking.
The third date was with Madison. We met at Pharmacy Burger in East Nashville and had root beer and tater tots with our burgers. It turned out she worked in a career field adjacent to mine: she’s interior design and I’m construction. I walked her back to her car determined to get her number, because up to that point we communicated only through Hinge. I went in for an awkward hug in which my chin collided spectacularly with her shoulder. I joked that I wouldn’t be able to speak with an injured jaw. “I don’t care as long as I get your number,” she said.
And so the mood was set from then on. I’m in love with a comedian. It’s one of my favorite things about Madi. I tend to be an old soul, and at times even flirt with the prestigious title “curmudgeon”. If you know me well you know I have a few reasons to be. But Madi makes me younger (even though she gives me crap about being 31 years old). When I’m tired and in no mood to laugh, she makes a face or a voice with the exuberance of a small child, and my stone exterior crumbles into laughter.
Madi keeps me young in other ways, too. She’s always pointing out dogs. I grew up without pets and though she teases me about my lack of outward emotion towards them (and my displeasure at wedging themselves between her and me on the couch) I’ve learned to appreciate their funny little personalities. Also, I now know what “cute” means. Not from any innate understanding, mind you, but in a pattern-recognition sort of way. “It’s cute!” she’ll say as she shoves an Instagram post in my face, or points out the car window at an old house with ferns on the porch, or a printed dress in Target.
Notice how hard my hands clutch my knees at the Space Needle.
Then there’s all the ways she pushes me outside my comfort zone. In Seattle a few weeks ago, she made me stand on the glass floor in the Space Needle. It wasn’t natural, but I did it (I played footsie with the glass a few times before trusting it with my full weight). Then there’s the way she makes me leave the house later to get to a flight. “No,” she says, “we don’t need to be at the airport three hours early.” Or how we play board games together, which, as a self-professed disliker of board games, is challenging. But she insists I’ll have fun once I get started, and she’s usually right.
On June 1st, I asked her to marry me behind the columns of the Parthenon in Nashville. I treated her to a manicure and pedicure while madly texting my friend Jordan, who acted as our secret paparazzi. She knew something was up when I started texting like a sixteen-year-old girl, because I hardly ever use my phone when we’re out and about. Afterwards, I suggested we get ice cream at Jeni’s, but didn’t let her sit down to eat it. “Let’s take it to Centennial Park!” I said. She looked at me as if to say “are you crazy?” but then considered the mani/pedi I just paid for and she agreed. Then I power walked through the park with Madi and backpack in tow, the sky threatening rain, furtively texting to make sure Jordan was in position as we approached the Parthenon. I never saw him, but he insisted he was there.
Down on one knee. Photo by J Kinard.
I stopped in the colonnade and said, “I made you something.” It was a book of sketches I had done, depicting moments in our relationship. It ended with a sketch of me proposing to her. The caption said “Will you Marry Me?” Madi said yes before I had even fished the ring box out of my backpack, which I did with some difficulty. I told her I needed to do it right, so I said it out loud, verbally. She said yes again.
She puts up with my moodiness, my yelling at cars that cut me off, my sensitivity, my love of James Bond movies. She makes me laugh. She makes me younger. She makes me a better man. And in nine months’ time (no, we don’t have a wedding date yet), I get to marry her.