Aimee asked me if I could write a few things for the website, so I thought I would include the brief but interesting story of how the boy met the girl.
It all began one winter night in a basement bar in downtown San Diego, where single men and women had congregated for an adult version of musical chairs. The ceilings were low; the ambiance was a hazy red and pop music played lightly in the background. For four relatively excruciating minutes at a time participants were subjected to the company of a random member of the opposite sex in the hopes of 'hitting it off' until a bell rang and they were allowed to move on to the next person or to the bar, generally whichever was closer.
It pleases me to note that neither Aimee nor I, nor any of the friends we were with were actually there to meet anyone, and that statistically (though the sample size was small) we represented the 99th percentile of talent in the place. Aimee was there with some of her girlfriends for "girl's night", and I was with my friend Brian researching how best to turn an unfortunate experience such as speeding dating into a comedic YouTube hit. I don't remember a lot to be honest about when I first met Aimee: I know it was at the end of the night, I know I was exhausted, and I know I didn't get to say a lot. :-) By this point I'd already met Aimee's friends who had relayed my entire life history to Aimee in advance, and I was thus naturally at a loss for material when all of my best Canadian knowledge on tree tapping technique, what it's like to fight a bear and how to tease beavers into hats was deprived of me. I do remember having fond impressions of Aimee though and thinking that she was a cutey and a smarty, as she still is today.
It was actually Aimee not myself who coordinated a double date afterwards with my friend Brian and her friend Rachel. I would have gotten in touch with Aimee on my own, but after the event I was actually locked out of my account and couldn't see anyone's contact info. The four of us went out to dinner at a Greek place for restaurant week with me initially being paired with Rachel, which didn't last long as Aimee and I connected quickly over some passages from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Specifically, the scene from the Restaurant at the End of Universe in which the cow sidles up to the table and starts recommending choice cuts of meat from itself to Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Arthur. This is obviously an odd passage to start a romance and yet there it is. Not long after, Aimee and Rachel excused themselves to the restroom and made the switch, while Brian and I grunted to accomplish the same. For the rest of the night it was Aimee and I and Brian and Rachel, who despite having little in common took one for the team. Thanks guys :-)
Our relationship matured progressively from there. I've always been impressed with Aimee's intelligence, sense of humour and willingness to try new things whether it's travelling to Phoenix to see a hockey game or to Asia for three months to sink ourselves into a foreign culture. Realistically though it wasn't until we went out to the desert to see the Pleiades meteor shower with a blanket and a bottle of wine that I knew she was the woman for me. Sitting under the shooting stars with no distractions we just spent the night chatting about life, the universe and everything else. It is from that, that I realized that Aimee and I had similar expectations, similar goals and similar hopes for what we wanted and from each other and the world. And, that was that... :-)