How I Met Honey Graham: A Love Story to Celebrate Our First Date-i-versary!

Earlier this week marked the anniversary of my first date with Honey Graham! It was love at first sight... 

Honey Graham and I have an interesting story. I had just gotten out of a horrible long-term, toxic relationship and graduated college (both of these happened at the same time, a few months prior). I was on my way to graduate school at the University of Wyoming and my family lived in central Wyoming at the time. I moved all my belongings into their garage for the summer and spent the summer doing unpaid research for the National Weather Service. It was a great time and I learned so much from the experience. 

I was very lonely though. I didn’t have any friends and the breakup was still hard on me, even though it was a long time coming and probably should have happened years prior. I started looking for friends online since I lived in a small town and there weren’t really a lot of people my age with my interests around. I started talking to a few people just here and there and also was looking for anyone who lived in Laramie since I’d be living there in just a few weeks! 

I didn’t spend a ton of time looking since I was very busy getting my life in order for graduate school. Atmospheric Science is crazy hard and I had a lot to do before classes started at the end of August. 

My mom and I found an apartment and moved all my stuff in at the beginning of August and I started the transition into living on my own. This was the first time I did not have roommates and I was pretty lonely when I had the chance to actually relax. I resumed looking for friends online and I found this goofy, sweet guy. He sent me a message through the website we interacted on just as my classes were starting. He really helped me through those first couple weeks. I looked forward to my nightly message from Honey Graham. Soon, we decided to ditch the website and start chatting through instant messengers instead. This really made our relationship grow as we could talk anytime, not just a message or two a day.  I could talk to him while doing my homework and research. Soon, I found myself pretty smitten with him, even though he lived over an hour away and we hadn’t met face to face yet. We started talking on the phone and immediately I noticed his Texan accent! We talked almost all night the first time he called me. We had a lot in common and we were both pretty lonely and filled a need for each other. I had a strange schedule and he worked from home so we were able to talk fairly often. 

After a month of talking and chatting and getting to know each other, he finally asked me to come visit him. He invited me to an Art Gallery Walk on an upcoming Friday. He and his sister and housemate friend had an extra bedroom in their (large) apartment so I could stay the weekend. It sounded great to me and I accepted! (I did have an escape plan and promised to call my parents every few hours to check in. Honey Graham understood.)

Well, the weekend finally arrived! I was so excited but also a little nervous. My classes ended at noon, so I packed my bag the day before and left immediately upon getting home. It was an easy and VERY pretty drive and I enjoyed it (good thing, because I would make this drive A LOT in the next year). I had directions to his apartment, but he wasn’t very specific and I had a hard time finding the place. I drove up and down the street twice before he finally came outside and I found him. He never told me there was a business under his apartment! Anyway, he gently made fun of me and I made a face at him and off we went, hand in hand! We walked down to Old Town where we talked and held hands and had a lot of fun. He took me out to lunch at a really good brewery and showed me around Fort Collins. We shared a soda and he told me a funny story of how according to this one child (I don’t remember if it was a story he read online or if it happened with someone he knew), sharing a drink meant we were married. We had a good laugh. 

Well, the gallery walk started and we met up with the others who were doing it with us, but it was kind of a do your own thing at your own pace activity, so we visited a bunch of art galleries and oohed and ahhed over everything. Some of those galleries are still my favorite places. We decided we were hungry so he took me out for Mexican for dinner! It was delicious. I miss that restaurant. We walked home and he helped me get my bedroom ready for the night. There was a psycho bird in that room (Seriously, his sister still has that bird and it HATES me) and it freaked me out, but I eventually went to sleep. 

I woke up early the next morning (I couldn’t sleep well since I was excited/anxious) and brought my class notes out into the common room so I could study for an upcoming exam. I wasn’t sure if Honey Graham was an early riser or not, but I wanted to be out of my room when he woke up. I talked with his sister, her boyfriend, and their other roommate for a while, but overall, it was a very relaxing time and I enjoyed it. Eventually, Honey Graham woke up (not an early riser… lol) and I put the notes away. 

Honey Graham wanted to take me on a hike up Grey Rock. We drove over and spent the morning hiking! It was a beautiful hike and we had a great time. We spent the evening walking around the lake. I was feeling kind of sick (stupid IBS makes me sick when I get stressed/excited/too tired or eat the wrong thing), and as we walked around, it was super romantic and I knew that he wanted to kiss me, but I also knew that that would probably make me throw up. It was frustrating because I wanted to kiss him more than anything right then. Poor guy. At least he was understanding. 

We went to the grocery store to get some food to make for dinner. We also got Little Shop of Horrors to watch since that’s one of his favorite movies and I’d never seen it and he wanted to share it with me! We ate and watched the movie. It was a lot of fun. It was also the first time I had Natural Cheetos snacks. Yum! (Honey Graham is very allergic to MSG/monosodium glutamate/autolyzed yeast extract and all cheetos snacks except the natural ones contain it)

I started getting sick again and I actually had to use his bathroom several times to throw up. This freaked me out even more and made me even sicker because I was stressing myself out over being sick and thinking that I probably scared away this sweet, perfect guy. 

Finally I felt a little better and Honey Graham invited me to stay in his room so I could use his (private) bathroom if I got sick again during the night. I was very freaked out about having to use the shared bathroom to puke in. I was also freaked out about sharing a bedroom with a guy who I had only met in person recently. He said he’d sleep on the floor on the far side of the room. I thought this was acceptable (and really sweet of him to offer), so I finally went to sleep. Plus, that stupid bird wasn’t in there! I swear the whole thing was completely chaste… we hadn’t even kissed yet. I appreciate him looking out for me, even at the very beginning. 

I woke up Sunday morning and he was (snoring) peacefully on the floor. I was feeling a lot better after some sleep and so I got up and got ready for the day. I had a busy week with that exam coming up, so I needed to get back home. I crawled back in bed and started studying again. Soon, Honey Graham woke up. He was very sweet and made sure I was feeling okay. I’m sure we ate breakfast at some point. I packed up all my things and got ready to go back home. We exchanged goodbyes and I finally let him kiss me. It was magical. I mean, it felt like a kiss you see in those sappy romance movies. Sigh. I already knew it was all over… that he and I were meant to be together. I knew we’d end up together forever. 

And this was only the beginning! 

Do you believe in love at first sight?