Hopes were not high.
Through those personals, nerdbird went on a handful of pleasant but forgettable dates. ballardoregonian would go on just one - with nerdbird.
ballardoregonian contacted nerdbird. After a couple of late-night, drunken IM sessions, they decided to meet at the Frye Art Museum. (Afterwards, they would say that they "met at the Frye" when anyone asked, a lie of omission if there ever was one.) After awkwardly wandering around the Mark Ryden exhibit for a while (nerdbird had never even heard of pop-surrealism) they retreated to the more familiar comforts of Vito's, the nearest dive bar.
Neither is really sure what happened next. It wasn't really a date that warranted a second one. Or a third. But they fell in love anyway, as easily as falling off a log. Five and a half years later, ballardoregonian proposed to nerdbird in the garage while she listened to some old cassettes recently dug out of a box. Not a proposal that one would see in a movie perhaps, but one that perfectly suited them.
She said yes.
