My newest piece is up now on A Love So True, and I wanted to talk a little bit about it, in part because the anniversary of one event I mention in it is today.
First, I’ve never actually written about relationships before. It’s a little bit odd, really, considering how many long-term (and very serious) relationships I’ve been in.
Anyway, when the article first went live, I posted about it on Facebook, and I tagged Felix in the post. As it turns out, it moved some of his friends to tears, and one of his friends even told me it made him cry. (Specifically because “Felix is adorable,” which I definitely agree with.)
The article is actually much shorter on A Love So True than I’d originally written, and I feel like there’s a bit lost or missing. The whole story never would have fit, anyway, and as far as I can tell, there’s no end in sight.
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One thing that I know about myself, very firmly, is that my family is really important to me. Which is why, right around the time we started dating, I asked Felix if he would come home to meet my parents and my younger brother.
I’d say it went pretty well.
It’s kind of funny, actually: my brother’s kind of picky about the sorts of guys I date. But overall, he’s been a good litmus test of whether or not a guy is good enough. (He only really actively seemed to dislike one guy I dated, and that guy told me to my face that I needed to go on a diet and lose weight, so after that, I trust the kid’s take.)
My parents like him, too, and remembered him from when Felix and I first met.
Over the summer, I called my mom to tell her about a date I’d been on that went Not Abysmally. “Is this the guy you told me about when I saw you in May?” she asked.
“No,” I told her. “I think he just wants to be friends.”
The sort of friends who meet every week to eat at the Hawaiian food truck at City Hall. And text each other every day. And take each other to nice birthday dinners at interesting, dimly-lit restaurants.
It’s always been important to me to be friends first. And I’ve been friends with everyone I’ve been in a relationship with. When I was (attempting) online dating, I had a couple experiences where I felt like the person I was seeing didn’t look at me as a person but as an exclusively romantic venture — we couldn’t just hang out, we had to Go On A Date.
That’s the most important thing in our relationship: so much of it is just hanging out.
(Well. Hanging out and also eating at Poi Dog, which is one of our relationship mainstays. I’m pretty sure Kiki, one of the co-owners, knows us by name. Although admittedly “Felix and Feliza” are easy names to remember next to each other.)
Our story starts in Philadelphia, and it has something which feels essentially Philadelphian to me in it. We met in Old City, just a block or two from the Ben Franklin post office; our dates were at local-owned businesses; I fell for him on the steps of the Art Museum.
This is already about 600 words of gross romantic crap, but I felt a deep, intensive need to babble a little bit. Today is the anniversary of the night we sat on the Art Museum steps, so it’s fair to say it’s been a year since I fell in love. I’m looking forward to more years filled with more stories. And I’d love to hear about some of yours.
Feliza Casano 