On January 12th, 2016, exactly ten years ago today, my beloved wife Gila and I had our first date. As I wrote this time last year, that date went really well.

Here’s how that date came to be!

One fine day in December 2015, after I’d taken a long while away from relationships I decided it was time to get back into it. I hadn’t ever been much of a casual dater – most of my romantic relationships had been existing friendships which escalated to more over time – but I decided to finally be one of those folks who meets up with strangers for the express purpose of a date. This being Modern Times, I decided to attempt this with a dating app.

It was my first time using such a thing. I installed one and was basically daring the silly thing to work. I figured if I was going to try an app, I was going to do it in a fiercely practical way. I made sure everything about me I thought might be a red flag for someone out there was featured prominently in my profile:

• Here’s exactly where I am politically, religiously, etc.
• Here’s my real age.
• Here’s my firm disinterest in parenthood.
• Here’s my bisexuality but also my monogamousness. (For those unfamiliar, those two things can go together.)
• Here’s the neighborhood of our city in which I actually live, not the nearest fashionable one.
• Here are a bunch of weird hobbies and pursuits of mine.
• Here are social and political things about which I’m a vocal activist.
• Here’s some of the art, comedy, and other creative stuff I do, and a bit of the weirder end of my sense of humor.
• Here’s the fact that my username there was also the one I’ve used everywhere online for decades. I’ve had a pretty active online presence ever since there’s been such a thing, so I’m fairly searchable before you even say hello.
• Here are some photos of me I quite like but also some I think I look particularly fat, old, or otherwise unflattered in, and also ones that clearly show off certain things I like to do with my personal style. (For example, I’m a cis masculine-presenting guy who regularly wears nail polish.)

In addition to filling the hell out of my profile with all this, I had a lot of fun with the app’s survey questions and generally gave really involved answers.

My attitude on the app was one of blatant honesty. I’d rather someone who doesn’t like thing X about me would see that thing on my profile right up front and so choose not to engage with me, rather than have them get interested but find out that deal-breaker thing about me later and be disappointed. I came at it from the angle of saying “hey, I’m here, this is what I’m like, and here’s a bunch of stuff about me you might not like.” I wasn’t necessarily trying to scare people off, but I wanted to see if anyone out there would see all those things about me and still potentially like me. (I’d been burned in the past by an abusive partner who, among other things, spent most of our time together loudly disapproving of, insulting me over, and trying to change fundamental things about me, and I was not interested in taking that kind of damage again.) Also, I’d heard so many horror stories about people meeting on dating apps and the person turning out to be nothing like their profile, look nothing like their photo, etc. to the point of false advertising, and I really failed to understand the logic behind that; why lie to someone from the start, as if they won’t actually realize you lied to them when they meet you?

Long story long, my strategy worked. I got messaged by someone who saw my profile and liked it, I liked hers, she recognized obscure pop-culture stuff from my profile and I from hers, and we really clicked from the start. Gila and I totally fell for one another, dated, moved in together, got married, and exactly ten years after that first date we’re still ridiculously happy. She is literally my favorite person in the entire world. Her joys and weirdnesses and my joys and weirdnesses mesh together so perfectly, and our relationship has always been based on complete honesty and open communication and sharing. We’ve seen and supported each other through the highest highs, lowest lows, and everything in between.

So much for trying out casual dating, though. I married my very first app date!

Our relationship is the healthiest, happiest, and closest romance and personal connection of any kind I’ve ever had, and every day we spend together is better than the last.

Among a lot of people who know us we’re that obnoxiously-cute couple.

It’s so goddamn gross, and it’s been the greatest decade of my life by far.