How I fell in love with a geek

Although I talk about him and our wonderful geeky life a lot on my blog, I realized last week that I’ve never actually told the story of how I met Shane and how that geeky life got started.

So today, in honour of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d finally tell that story!

It all started two years ago.

I had signed myself up for an online dating site, hoping that I might be less terrible at meeting new people on the Internet than I was at meeting people in person. It was okay, but after a few months of no luck, I had lost hope and decided to cancel my membership.

A few days before it was up, I decided to give my matches one last look. I will always be glad I did, because I came across one that caught my eye. He was cute, and he loved superheroes.

So I asked him who his favourite superhero was. And the next day, February 14, he answered me—his favourite was Batman, and what was mine?

We wrote novels back and forth to each other for the last few days of my membership, and then, he asked if I wanted to talk on the phone. I said yes, and proceeded to be nervous as all hell until the appointed time.

It went incredibly well, and we talked for hours about all kinds of things. Our favourite superheroes, our favourite games, inside jokes we’d already struck up, you name it. He was just as much of a geek as I was, and it was amazing.

So we planned for an actual date that following Saturday, where we’d cook together at my apartment.

That Thursday, I got a little surprise.

Later that week, Shane asked if he could stop by. It was very unplanned; I was yet again nervous as all hell, but I really liked him, so of course I said yes. I waited for him at the door of my building, completely forgetting that I was wearing pajamas, watching for someone who looked like the pictures to walk by.

I still remember opening the door for him that night.

It was like something out of a movie. We just kind of looked at each other, I in my pajamas and he in his ripped sweatpants. All it took was one smile, and we were both smitten.

As it turns out, he’d been at the local games and hobbies store buying new dice, and he’d brought me some little Lego Batman mystery figures. I was so caught up in the high of meeting him, though, that I totally forgot to open them.

Whoops.

A few days later, we had our first date.

I realized right after he’d left that I’d forgotten to open his gifts for me, so I decided to wait for him to come back for our date to open them. We’d cook a fancy lobster pasta dish, and then I’d see what was in those mystery packets.

It went incredibly well (nothing like a game of Overcooked)—and after dinner, I finally opened my gift. And of course, what was in them but two Lego Batman figures, both carrying a plate of lobster.

It was just too perfect.

I decided to keep one on my desk at home, and one at my desk at work, just so I always had one with me.

After a month of dating, we made it official.

When I tell this part of the story, it always makes me think of an episode of the Office, where Pam says she knew Jim meant it when he said that he wanted to marry her because she’d just woken up and did not look cute.

I’d had a cold for a couple of days, and that day, I was home sick. Shane came over that morning after his shift (he was working nights at the time), fully equipped with soup, ice cream, and his copy of Pokémon Y so we could have a good, old-fashioned battle on the couch.

We’d had a battle or two a few days prior—I won with my overpowered Umbreon and Arcanine, and I’m only just learning as I write this how sad he was that it made his Psychic types “look like bitches.”

So I should have been expecting something when we had our rematch, but in my enfeebled and derpy state, I wasn’t.

First, he threw out a shiny Dragonite named Erin. It kicked my butt.

Then, he threw out a normal Dragonite named Will. It also kicked my butt.

The next Dragonite, “You,” raised my suspicions a little. It was the only one that didn’t look like an actual name.

Three more Dragonites followed; “Be,” “My,” and “Girlfriend.”

Yep. He asked me out with six of my favourite Pokémon, sequentially named. I couldn’t have said no even if I’d wanted to.

Now, nearly two years later, we’ve built an amazingly nerdy little life together. And it’s all thanks to the Internet, Lego Batman, and a bunch of overpowered Dragonites.

YOUR TURN