Today Rusty and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary. And if it weren’t for blogs, I think the likelihood of our paths crossing would’ve been much lower.
So here’s a retrospective…
December 8, 2004: Rusty’s first comment on my blog, wherein he expresses his affinity for PHP. I had found and started reading his blog sometime in the month of November. I don’t remember exactly how I originally found it, but I think it might’ve been through David’s blog. I remember being intrigued and perplexed by all the driveway photos.
March 9, 2005: We met IRL for the first time, at a blogger trivia get-together at Central City Tavern. I also met IRL that night: Thomas, Nikki, Jen, Shannon, Tony, Joseph.
April 22, 2005: Blogger bowling. It was a small crowd (just me, Rusty, Jen, and Joeventures) and I was taking the opportunity to size him up, as they say. I even thought about asking if he wanted to come home with me that night, but due to boring logistical issues (and, yeah, nerves), I decided not to. I knew by that point that I definitely wanted to do him, though.
April 26, 2005: I seized the opportunity to drop some innuendo that could, in the event of disinterest on Rusty’s part, be written off as simply a garden-variety sophomoric joke. I asked for several friends’ interpretations of his response (it seems like he was probably doing the same thing as me; gotta have plausible deniability!) and after getting unanimous opinions that this was, indeed, what you kids call “flirting,” I took the sexual innuendo to email.
April 27, 2005: It just so happened that Rusty had sent me a one-line email regarding the new version of Mac OS X, so I didn’t even need a pretense for emailing him - I just replied.
April 27, 2005 - May 5, 2005: We exchanged a series of emails fraught with business metaphors to refer to fucking. It was pretty funny and entertaining until it reached the point where I started to get annoyed and wondered when we were going to fuck already. There was also a four-day gap where he didn’t respond and I started to wonder if he wasn’t interested after all. He blamed it on working 40 hours a week and getting behind on email. Or was it nerves?
Sometime during the weekend of May 1 (sort of tangential): I was visiting Dacia in New York, and I told her about how there was this “local blogger dude” that I really wanted to fuck, and I was trying to make it happen. After I got back home she sent me an email that concluded with, “Good luck with Rusty!”
May 7, 2005 (tangential): The Great Blogswap of 2005 (a.k.a. the “blorgy”) was set to commence the week of May 9, and there were jokes via email about swapping more than blogs. Little did the rest of ‘em know that would be true for Rusty and me! (He drew my blog.)
May 8, 2005: I finally got impatient with the innuendo and said this in an email to Rusty: “Re: interview scheduling, etc.: I love me some good innuendo as much as the next guy, but it’s about time to close the deal. I can provide references… -oh shit that’s more innuendo. Never mind.” He replied: “I agree about there only being so much innuendo before something has to be done one way or the other. If you’re serious, tomorrow night would actually be a good time since I get off work at 6:15 and don’t have to be in the next day ’til 2. Or Friday night, since I’m off Friday and Saturday. If you’re not, I won’t think lesser of you for it.” And I replied to that: “Of course I’m serious. What do you think I am, some kind of asshole? Tomorrow night eh? That’s fine by me, although we could make it interesting by saying Wednesday after trivia. Or wtf, both! Right? Right.”
May 9, 2008: Monday morning I emailed him directions to my apartment. We’d already exchanged cell phone numbers. At 7:09 p.m. I still hadn’t heard from him and I sent an email saying: “Ok dude I know you’re there, you’re commenting on blogs at the same time as me. What’s your deal? Maybe you are too wrapped up in bestbuysux.org.” Then he went on IM and we chatted for a while, about all kinds of things (including the first day of the Blogswap), until finally at 7:50 I said: “are you coming down here or what?”
evilwilly1: haha, sure
evilwilly1: I need to wash the retail stink off first though
AmberATL30309: gah…
AmberATL30309: now are we clear on what this is or do we need to lay some ground rules
evilwilly1: I’m all about some ground rules… your thoughts?
AmberATL30309: uh, no drama. that’s pretty much it.
evilwilly1: works for me, no strings attached
AmberATL30309: fabulous. i was starting to lose my faith in ATL men.
AmberATL30309: and I’m assuming we’re not repeating this to our blog buddies
evilwilly1: nah
AmberATL30309: i’ll have to tell you about the gay virgin sometime
AmberATL30309: anyway what we have here is a “FWB” situation
evilwilly1: kickass, exactly what I’m looking for
AmberATL30309: excellent
After Rusty and I had been fucking for a few weeks, Sara Beth joked that we were going to fall in love, and she was going to speak at our wedding and recount the dirty details of how it all started. At the time, I scoffed at her; but hey, she was totally right!
And the rest is history. :)
READ ME: Disclaimer
22 Responses to "Three years!"
Clearly I’m biased, but I think that starting a relationship with fucking is the best thing ever. Much better to know that you’re compatible on that level and go from there than to realize that the sex isn’t working.
As an aside, I think it’s funny that you (and I do this too when writing about you) often write about me without making my name a hotlink - like: “dude, seriously, if you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity and that name needs some ’splaining… I can’t help you”
Ah, love in the time of teh internets!
HA. You are totally leaving out how at some point both you and Rusty blogged about getting laid in a (church) parking lot. Which gave you both away, to everyone, totally, and was cute and funny. I may have related this same comment somewhere last year, but it still cracks me up.
I can’t find the post where Rusty lamented that he did not want FWB, he wanted to BE YOUR BOYFRIEND and we were all commenting: “Um, I’m pretty sure she likes you by now dude. Not that I know who she is. Not that I got an email. Or anything.” It was funny, again, and cute.
Congrats! Also, that link is probably broken. Sorry in advance, I always fuck up links the first time and I dont have preview.
Strangely enough, just as I clicked the link to read this post (not that I haven’t heard the story, twice-over, by now), “Crazy Bitch” popped up on my iTunes, bringing both to mind pole dancing and crazy fucking.
Ah, how appropriate. :)
Fear of H.R. incidents. ;)
Dacia,
Exactly. I thought about linking it, but then I thought, come on now, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve linked it before. Get up to speed with the narrative of my life, blog readers!
Nikki,
Heh.
Here’s the only post I could find where I mentioned the church parking lot. It was written on June 30; I’m pretty sure we were “out” by that time. I remember being in a chat room with Rusty, Jen, and Shannon sometime after Rusty’s post on May 26 and them saying they were onto us.
(Not like we really made a whole lot of effort to hide it or anything. This isn’t/wasn’t high school, after all.)
You reminded me I should reinstall comment preview.
The Muse,
Nice soundtrack. :) And yeah, you’ll probably be hearing this story every year!
Not that you went to *lengths* to hide it, just the stringently . . . non-proper-noun-use . . . in Rusty’s post was very funny at the time, given that I think no one 1) cared (ppl obvs thought it was actually awesome) and 2) everyone already had worked it out. :)
[...] is an aside titled ‘Blogger Love’ dated 5/9/08 Modern love: “December 8, 2004: Rusty’s first comment on my blog …March 9, 2005: We met IRL for [...]
Even though it was sort of fun to have a “secret” for a few weeks (even if it wasn’t actually a secret, we pretended it was!) in retrospect I think everyone figured out pretty early on. I remember Jen giving me an inquisitive look as I got into Rusty’s truck after trivia on Wednesday, May 11. I couldn’t even use the “he’s giving me a ride home” explanation since I lived walking distance from there. ;)
Ha! I was going to leave a comment which referenced y’all going home together after trivia, but there it is… I think Mae was the first one who actually voiced what we were both thinking.
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I can’t believe it’s been three years already!!! Congratulations you guys. I wish you MANY more.
That’s a great story. I am sorry to have missed the last big event in ATL, but possibly there will be another excuse to go soon.
Congratulations! Great story.
Congratulations & thanks for sharing that great story. I remember the first time you commented on Rusty’s blog (you thought he was “hilarious”) - I was like, “Who is this Amber person?” and found Being Amber Rhea at the old URL. I think that was at around the time you were doing the review of that religious, misogynist, homophobic book (which was pretty hilarious itself). Anyway…
I was glad to get to know you guys & to be around from the start to see your relationship grow. While I think it was getting obvious that you guys were into each other prior to the blog posts about the church-parking-lot-fucking (I think Rusty mentioned it first), those posts were what actually gave it away for the rest of us. I am so happy for you two & am glad that things worked out so well. I hope that this is just one of many great anniversaries to come for the two of you.
Awwwww! Awwwww! My heart beats for you and Rusty! I love this story and I love web love. My favorite thing about the internet is that lovers can stimulate my brain before we finally hit the sheets. And really, is love possible in any other way for geeks?
Awwww! Just totally melting over this post
(I still have the entire email correspondence from my ex when we first met through the web. It’s over, but it’s still sweet as hell!)
Congratulations on your three years - so far! May there be many, many more!
Congratulations, you two! I’m pretty sure it just keeps getting better! May it get even better than that for you and Rusty.
Sorry I missed this while on vacation but congratulations to you two! As someone who knows many folks who have found uniquely awesome love in various ways on these here internets, these sorts of stories always warm my heart. A few years ago I had occasion to hold a baby born to two people who met on a messageboard about a television show. Perhaps there’ll be a blogspawn in your future that will have his or her own unique story of how mommy and daddy met….
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