Chapters In Our Story

Chapter 1: 35/45

“You’ve gotta grab 35 by the balls and say ‘Hey World! I’m 35!’”. I’d watched this episode of Sex and the City more than a few times before I turned 35. At 35, I was full-throttle in the throes of a midlife/existential/nihilistic or whatever you want to call it crisis. I’d been in a long-term relationship that was a couple of years past its expiration date, and I was struggling to build a fledgling consulting business that through the good graces of an excellent mentor I was able to successfully launch after a few more years. I was planning a solo trip to Europe in the middle of winter in March 2019 when I remembered a Facebook group I’d joined a year earlier on the recommendation of an acquaintance. The cold, lonely, and boring dead of winter seemed to be the perfect time to explore this group a bit further and to distract myself from my general ennui.

I was 45 and living in Rockville, MD next to the county dump (sorry, “solid waste transfer facility”). It wasn’t too bad. Folks were mostly nice and there were food trucks. I was a couple of years out of a 7-year relationship and 20 years into a job that I wouldn’t exactly say that I hated. The relationship felt longer than my tenure at work, honestly. And at least I was grateful for the job. Anyway, you get the picture. Oh, and I had two kids who would be graduating high school later that year.

Chapter 2: Bourbon and Books

“Boring Status Updates” – this was the name of the Facebook group. I’d given it a glance once or twice and honestly didn’t see much appeal (too many inside jokes I didn’t understand.) But I decided to give it another shot and I saw someone make a joke post riffing on an ad for a t-shirt that had “bourbon and books” inscribed on it. The post was clowning on the stupid t-shirt AND the word ‘sapiosexual’, and was the first genuine laugh I’d ever gotten out of this group. I had to check out the profile of the person who made this post – hmmm someone named Walt Baxter, he must be old and married. Wrongo – he was hot and single and, okay, older but not old. How had I been sleeping on a group that had a hot guy like this in it for so long?? More importantly, what do I say to make him interested in me?

Are you familiar with the term “e-girl”? I know what it means now, and definitions can still vary, but back in the late aughts through the late 2010s when Millennials ran the internet, I applied it–probably incorrectly–to just about any woman on social media who was 1) attractive and funny, 2) fairly online and 3) out of my league. That’s what I figured about this person named Christina Rea who sent me a friend request on Facebook.

A little background: in Boring Status Updates, or BSU for short, we had a nice little community of bright and interesting people with the common goal of posting so much cringe that we gave each other brain damage. To that end, we would channel an eclectic array of voices: motivational quotes from Scarface, maxims from the Joker (both Ledger and Leto), and screeds from the “Barefoot is Legal” crowd. We were Disney adults, unctuous and horny Asian men, empaths, INTJs (I’m one) and, yes, self-described sapiosexuals. In fact, Christina would probably add people who use the word ‘eclectic,’ as in ‘an eclectic array of voices’.

And getting back to Christina: when she sent me a friend request on Facebook and followed my moribund Instagram account, I was over the moon. I’ve never stalked anyone else’s social media presence so quickly or so thoroughly before. Alas, my excitement was tempered somewhat by two factors: 1) she was out of my league and 2) she was involved with someone.

…or was she?

Chapter 3: Never Say Never Again

Well yes, but also no (with regards to the ‘being involved with someone’ part of the above statement – said relationship was dead and we were beating its ghost at that point. We were broken up without formally breaking up, each pretty much doing our own thing.) Off to Europe I went, where I spent hours and hours and hundreds of Euros traipsing around beautiful places, desperately trying to think of what to say (and what perfect picture to post!) to capture Walt Baxter’s attention, someone I believed was surely out of my league. I’d be embarrassed to tell you how much time I spent perfecting selfie angles just to get that one amazing shot that was sure to get him to message me first.

When I realized I was in the Land of Likes But No DMs from this guy, my impatience kicked in as I didn’t have several millennia to wait for him to reach out (and anyone who knows him knows that would have been the case.) So I had to think of something pithy to say without making it seem too obvious that I was interested. I forget exactly what I said; likely something dumb related to a joke he’d posted. But it was enough to get the conversational ball rolling, and Walt became my travel buddy all through London and Paris.

After that trip, we talked and flirted for a few months before I decided to take the long drive down to Rockville, Maryland (which funnily enough I was familiar with after having lived for a year in DC.) Walt met me at my Airbnb and we went to lunch at a bookstore and spent the whole day together. It was a perfect first date (I think it ended with drunken chicken sandwiches but there was a lot of alcohol all day and details are fuzzy), and I knew immediately there was a connection between us. Sadly, this great and funny guy decided to drop a bomb on me that he was not interested in, or in the market for, a relationship. He’d been married once before and in a few dead-end long-term relationships and “never” wanted to do any of that again. Womp womp.

I don’t want to get too far into the linguistic weeds here, but the word “never” can be very nuanced and contextual, often born of hard lessons and regret. Ex: “Oh my god, I’m so sick, I’m never going to drink again,” “We are never getting a cat,” “I never want to marry or be in a serious relationship again,” etc. I don’t want to use this space to bash my exes (because, let’s face it, I was no peach myself) but let’s just say that my declaration of “never” did not come lightly. Plus, I had two kids who were going to college, and I had exactly zero ideas on how to get them there aside from working into my nineties or selling plasma. And to top it all off, I had–still have, in many ways–a lot of work to do on myself. Lots of wreckage and unexploded ordnance buried in my head that I wasn’t in a rush to deal with and didn’t want to foist upon anyone else.

But enough about me! Along came Christina, who, with her charm, humor, beauty and spirit, turned all of my self-assured, self-aggrandizing notions of bachelorhood on its balding head.

Chapter 4: Trading Crabs for Apples

TL;DR – we spent three and a half years creating our own Korean soap opera, replete with long periods of not talking, arguing over who felt what for each other, blah blah blah…I dragged out my own personal drama through the pandemic, finally put an end to it once and for all in 2022, and started the rewarding process of healing, growing, and moving on. After yet another 6 month hiatus from talking to Walt, while I was in Argentina in early 2022, I decided to reach out and see how he was doing. I’d firmly placed him in the friend zone by then and had no compunction sharing all the details of my single life with him, given he just wanted to be my good buddy.

Well, by September it was pretty obvious to me (and all my friends I shared receipts with) that Walt had turned the corner from wanting just a good buddy to maybe wanting more…? By November I’d worked up the courage to bring up this topic yet again, and put my foot down about what we were doing. To my surprise, Walt had finally decided to come clean that yes, he did have feelings for me, yes, he wanted to move forward with being in a relationship, and yes, I had pretty much been right all along about “us” but he had had his own issues, so timing really was key.

Fast forward to October 2023 – after a year of dating and traveling and having a great time together and growing and confirming that we both knew the other was that mystical ‘One’ everyone talks about, we got married in the nearest courthouse with availability (shoutout to Howard County), and a month later Walt was saying goodbye to Maryland crabs (not the good Alaskan kind either, those small blue ones with no meat and lots of ouchies when you crack them open) and hello to Big Apple living (he’s now totally comfortable jaywalking.)

I love my wife but I just want to get one thing out of the way before I begin: Alaskan King Crabs are not true crabs; they’re “crab-like crustaceans,” and I will leave it to the reader to continue down the internet rabbit hole from which I just emerged if they so choose.

OK, getting back on topic. Everything else Christina said is correct. Around that time, I was fine, occasionally even happy(?), being on my own. Not to get melodramatic, but my mid-life epiphany was that I was going to die a bachelor, like my father, and I was OK with that. “As long as the kids are healthy and happy,” I always told myself, “then I’m good.”

So why my change of heart? In short: When I was with her, whether we happened to be in NY, DC or elsewhere, I felt like I was home. And when I wasn’t with her, I was homesick. She showed me things that I knew to be reasonable and true in an abstract, intellectual sense, but that I’ve never really experienced or practiced myself. For example: Happiness in a relationship is so much more than just the absence of strife. A couple can come away from a disagreement or fight stronger and smarter for it. Reconnecting after an argument is so much more important and memorable than the argument itself. The list goes on. And it’s a growing list, one that I’m looking forward to completing with her for the rest of our lives.

Chapter 5: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

I don’t know how this movie stole my motto of how to live life, but as soon as I’m done writing this paragraph I’m going to figure out how to sue for damages. Anyway, so all of the above leads us to this point: we’re married, we’re living in New York, and Walt is constantly pleading with me to let him catch his breath because we can’t do everything we want to do all at once (sorry Charlie, you should have thought of that before October 20, no refunds now!) We’re traveling, we’re spending time with family, Walt is rediscovering the joys of vacation (and drawing crude pictures on beaches), we’re watching lots of incredibly goofy 90s thriller movies, we’re doing corny cute stuff like leaving locks on bridges all over the world, we’re building a business, we’re constantly learning new stuff, Walt’s writing stories, and overall, life is pretty fantastic. We’re over the moon to celebrate with all of you (especially those of you who took the time to read all this!) next March; please come equipped with jokes, embarrassing stories and pictures, hearty appetites, and a healthy appreciation for juvenile humor.

Everything she said. No, seriously, thanks for taking an interest in our story (the Cliffs Notes version, anyway). We really hope to see you in March, or, if not at the party, then at some point in the coming year. Love you all!