Twenty years ago today I took my wife out on our first date. We were college kids, 19 years old, and it was the first time I'd ever asked anyone out

We decided to go to town to see if we could buy her some birkenstocks, get something to eat, and talk about the drama of our anime club. She was the president and there was, as always, an older male troll who took objection to that

So I told jokes and helped her see the funny side of it all and we walked and talked all over town. For fourteen hours. I talked for most of it (her choice, as she was an introvert from an introvert family) and she was entranced.

The next day we hung out for twenty two hours. And we walked more and talked more and just kept walking. And twenty years later we still haven't gotten those sandals.

It was and remains my first relationship, and I was young and stupid and didn't want to commit, and said I'll hang around until the winds change and blow me somewhere else (because I knew I had hyper conservative parents and this couldn't work)

And we graduated college and she wanted to go to Japan on Jet. That would have been a good clean break point since I was already working at 1up in video games at the time. Maybe the winds changed?

But I said fuck it, and went to Japan too. And that year for our anniversary we planned to go to the restaurant of Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe. We had spent our early dates watching Iron Chef and playing civ, as romantic couples do