B and I spent a good part of the weekend crafting and posting our story, which you can read here and here, but it seems it wasn’t quite complete. Per request, I’m adding this addendum to answer a few questions. I spared Brad from helping me though. He did a great job (didn’t he folks?) but I think he’s had enough writing for a few days. However I did have to solicit his help when answering these. I couldn’t remember exaclty!

1. Dori asked how and when we became “official” as a couple.

That is a really hard question actually. We both had to laugh because we could not remember how we went from just friends to more than friends to being an official couple. At first I thought maybe that was because we did it so seamlessly, like it was just a natural progression or something. Yeah not quite.

Brad reminded me that I was extremely reluctant to assign titles and get all official. He seems to think that’s because I was trying to be independent and that I didn’t want to get serious with him. Which is maybe kind of true. Recall that I had recently broken up with a guy, and part of me wasn’t ready to dive back in. I thought I’d try single life for awhile. But I quickly found that I wanted to be with Brad and Brad alone. I’m not very good at juggling. Really, I just didn’t want to pressure him into anything. I felt pretty content just chillin’ and seeing what happened, and I guess I overstated that a little.

One day a friend asked if I’d be interested in maybe going out with a guy she knew. Like I said, I’m not good at juggling so my instinct was to stick to one guy, but I also didn’t want to pass anything up if Brad was dating on the side. So I asked him. He told me I could do whatever I wanted, but that he wasn’t planning to see anyone else. Well in that case, me neither. And suddenly, we were official.

I think the titles came soon after that, though I do remember an episode in July (three months after our first date) where he introduced me as his “friend” to some people who knew his ex-girlfriend (Brad has no explanation for this). However, I’m pretty sure we were official by then because it was after we first said the I love yous. See question 2.

2. Jess asked who said “I love you” first.

Brad. We were at my dad’s house soon after he first met my family. We had made a makeshift bed out of the couches in the living room where we were curled up together trying not to fall through the cracks. It was late and we were talking about all sorts of things. I’ll leave the details of the conversation out, let some things remain a mystery, but suddenly things felt really intense. There was an energy in the air and I tried to stay still and quiet, waiting for something to happen. Brad obviously had something on his mind, but he was working out in his head if/how/when to say it.

I think he actually told me he had something to say but wasn’t sure what I’d think of it. Remember me who seemed reluctant to even be called his girlfriend? Yeah, I can sympathize with his hesitancy. But I told him to go ahead, and then he told me he loved me. And I said it back without any reservations.

It was very sweet. We stayed up longer talking some more, and when we finally settled in to go to sleep, I told him again that I loved him and he said it back. And I remember thinking how new and exciting that was, but also how we might be saying this to each other every single day for the rest of our lives. And that made me happy.