# Laurel & Don # Laurel and Don met in March of 2010 when Laurel was working on her Ph.D. and Don was a postdoctoral researcher at University of California Riverside. Laurel was at a party at her friend Juliane’s apartment when this tall man with dark curly hair walked through the door. But Don had just worked a long day and hung out for only a little while before falling asleep on the sofa. Laurel and Don would meet several more times at other parties, and enjoyed talking to each other about books and hiking. Several of their friends commented on how natural they looked together, but they had reservations about dating. They had talked about enough topics to learn that they had some serious differences in opinions and life perspectives. On one particular night in July, as the group was walking to the Pizza Port restaurant from the San Diego Beer Fest, Laurel asked Don without any lead-in, “You know why we can’t date, right?” and Don replied, “It would never work.” After almost a year of being friends, Laurel and Don knew each other much better and Laurel decided that she would like to try dating Don. Although it almost certainly wouldn’t work because of their differences, Laurel enjoyed Don’s company too much to not try. Don was thinking similar thoughts, but remembered very well the conversation when Laurel had told him they couldn’t date and didn’t want to offend Laurel by bringing up the idea. A month of amusing awkwardness followed, where Laurel would choose to sit next to Don and talk to him and Don would freeze-up like a deer whenever Laurel smiled at him or touched him. Eventually Laurel was at a loss of how to flirt anymore and was seriously wondering if Don didn’t know she liked him or knew full well and didn’t feel the same. Don, in the meantime, was very confused because he thought Laurel was flirting but couldn’t reconcile that to their previous conversation. At another party, Don’s brother Mark happened to be in town. Late into the night, Laurel and Mark were playing the card game gin and Laurel gave up and asked Mark for advice. Mark answered that Don would never make the first move to date someone, so Laurel should ask Don if that’s what she wanted. A few days later, Laurel was hanging out with Don and others at the Getaway bar on campus and offered to drive him home so he wouldn’t have to walk. Seeing no better option, Laurel dove in and asked Don what he thought about dating. They talked for almost an hour about how that would work. Don was hesitant because he worried about it ending poorly and messily, and added, “I abhor drama.” But eventually they decided to see what happened. Almost immediately, life clicked into place as if they had always been together. While Don had been hesitant about dating, he was the first to say, “I love you”, after 5 days. Laurel needed to be more certain and waited a few months to say the same. After 3 years of great road trips, crazy Ultimate Frisbee tournaments, and cozy nights at home, they started talking about marriage. Don wanted to know why they couldn’t be non-traditional and Laurel could ask Don to marry her, but Laurel replied that she had asked him to date her and now it was his turn. The weekend before Christmas of 2014, Don asked Laurel to go on a weekend trip to Pismo beach, a favorite place of theirs on the coast of California. Taking a walk along the beach on the way to dinner, they stopped to watch the sunset. Don asked Laurel, “Are you willing to put up with me for a while longer?” and Laurel mischievously replied, “How much longer?” Don replied, “For the rest of our lives.”