What person in your life knows you best, and how did you meet?

The person who knows me best at this point in my life is my husband, E. I met E in January of 2021. I had just transferred colleges, unpacked my small and quaint apartment, and was looking forward to sitting down and binge watching Law & Order SVU until my eyes couldn’t stay open. Then I got a call from one of my friends, J, inviting me out to a local bar that happened to have karaoke that night. I felt as though I had to say yes, J was one of the friends that influenced my decision to transfer schools in the middle of a pandemic. I am so happy that I said yes. I remember walking into the bar and in the back room amongst the pool tables was a guy dancing without a care in the world. Oblivious to those having to try conversations at tables around him or sink a billiard ball without their pool cue being hit. He was the life of the party, even if it was only a party of one. J introduced me to E and everyone else at the large table. Little did I know that these people would become some of my dearest friends, that by the end of that year I would be dating E and that nearly three years later E and I would be saying “I do”. If you were to ask him, E would admit that he didn’t remember meeting me, and that I actually had to introduce myself to him three times before he remembered me. Of course that isn’t all on him, I had actually been in a relationship with someone else that first night we met. I wasn’t looking for anything romantic nor was E. When that relationship ran its course and I was single in the spring of 2021 I found myself sitting next to E at hangouts with friends, chatting in corners at parties, going to mass together with mutual Catholic friends and then eventually hanging out minus the friend group. E has always been an incredible listener, and put up with me being what he calls a “Meaniehead 3000” when I was guarded and reeling from previous relationship hurts. Letting E get to know me and getting to know him has been one of the greatest joys I’ve ever experienced.