April 2nd 2018 I was laying in a bathtub trying to alleviate my lower back pain with the hot water and epsum salts. I had a bulging disk but I didn’t know the severity of it at the time. Every morning I had to lay in a hot bath for close to an hour just so I could get through getting ready for the day. It worked well as a time to check my email, social media, text my family, and try to plan my days of being stuck in bed. On this particular day I matched with someone on a dating site.
I read through Amanda’s profile start to finish, multiple times. I took note of the interesting quirks, television shows she watched, and how she felt about family and friendships. I remember saying in my head on numerous occasions “me too!” and just being so elated that we matched but also that we had matched 99%. What are the chances of matching with someone on a dating site 99%, after answering well over 500 questions? I had to message her right away.
We had everything in common based on our profiles and I definitely let her know that in my first message to her haha. During a really difficult time in my life I had butterflies keeping me afloat. I made sure my first message to her discussed what we had in common, how interesting it was that we matched 99% on a dating site, and I tried to be as funny as I could without overdoing it. I hit send.
Throughout the day I checked in on the app and noticed she had been online for a good part of the day. I kept thinking to myself “is the website broken or something”? After about eight hours of constantly checking I put my phone done. I reached out to my friends Tim and Samee about her and when asked “What’s the 1% you don’t match on?” I said “We don’t match on the fact that I want her to message me”.
Around 5pm I decided I was going to pour myself a drink and work on a screenplay that I had stuck in my head for a good part of three years, Lie Alone. Fitting, right? Enough time was wasted being fixated on my phone and I figured I’d hear from her if it was meant to be, so I continued to bury myself in this script. Probably around my third drink, and 7:30pm I had a message from MandyDob. If my body would have allowed it, I could have done a backflip right then and there. Instead, I texted Tim and Samee “HOLY FUCKING SHIT AMANDA!”.
Amanda and I messaged each other maybe four times each before swapping phone numbers. To this day she is “Holy Fucking Shit Amanda!”. The name has since gained a heart and an engagement ring emoji. We texted for hours and planned to meet up two days later. Our 99% match led us to sneaking Jameson shots into our favorite restaurant, Gyu Kaku, followed by a drink across the street at the Barrel.
This day was the beginning of the rest of my life. She’s taken on Pickle and Chicken as if she birthed them herself, she’s my motivation in writing, the reason I was able to get through a severely bulging disk in my spine and the eventual herniation that left me walking with a cane, she’s my world and my sweet girl.
I’ve never been so fond of someone in my life. There’s never been a moment where I didn’t want to grab her and squeeze her tightly. I’m so proud of her work ethic and her strength in tough situations. I respect her ability to always find light in the dark. Amanda is a funny goofball, she’s strict in her beliefs, she’s motivated, she’s friendly to everyone. Her eye for story and photography is incredible. I love her so damn much. A day won’t go by where I look at her and think “Holy Fucking Shit Amanda.”
