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. :)
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