Supreme Courtin

He reached out to shake my hand when we met for our first date.

“Hi, I’m Alec.”

"Hi, I'm Seine," I said out loud.

To myself, I thought, “Wow, I suppose he did say he’s a really tall dude.” It’s hard to conceptualize from an online profile just how tall 6’5” is. In person, I realized that it is borderline scary-tall.

It was 10am on a Saturday morning in mid-January, and we had agreed to meet up for a cup of coffee. When we approached the counter to order, he pre-empted my reaching for my wallet by asking before we even ordered, “Can I pay for this?”

Genuinely and pleasantly surprised by the upfront initiative, and honestly a bit taken aback, I smiled, paused, and said, “Yeah.”

I was suddenly feeling jittery and nervous.

Two hours later. I’d spilled coffee on myself. Twice. He’s made fun of me for going to the rival grad school. Twice. I’d missed an 11am meeting with a friend. But Alec and I couldn’t stop talking to each other. We finally said our goodbyes after settling on a dinner date the following Monday.

Walking home from the coffee shop, I called my friend and sheepishly explained how I met an amazing guy for a first date at 10am and then completely lost track of when eleven o’clock rolled around. To both of the friends I saw later that day, I gushed about the magic of the morning first date, simultaneously knotting my stomach worrying that Alec wouldn't follow up on this Monday dinner date.

I needn’t have worried at all. Monday dinner at 7pm was followed by drinks was followed by impromptu snowman making was followed by a first kiss well past midnight while fresh snow fell all around us. Not bad for date #2.

A week and four more dates later, our dates started to blur into just hanging out. We didn’t need an activity to provide an excuse to see each other anymore. Or rather, the activity could be as simple as, “Was thinking of watching another Breaking Bad episode tonight. You in?”

Numerous sleepovers, brunches, comedy shows, study sessions, out-of-town visitors, home-cooked meals, a Superbowl party... and three weeks later brought us to Valentine’s Day.

In the morning, I sent him a Valentine’s card courtesy of NPR. He retorted with another NPR-inspired quib.

That night, I bounded over to his place for an adorable homemade three-course meal. He warned his roommates ahead of time not to go into the kitchen that evening so that he could give me a private, romantic, candle-lit Valentine’s Day dinner. He wouldn’t even let me do the dishes afterwards, insisting instead, “Don’t be silly, it’s Valentine’s Day.”

Falling asleep in his arms later that night, he pulled me in close, gave me a little squeeze and surprised me again.

“I want you to be my girlfriend.”

I burrowed into his chest, kissed him, and smiled in the dark.

“Deal,” I answered.