SPOUSE 1: Our first date was at this amazing little wine bar.
SPOUSE 2: We started talking and it turned out that we both love all the same classic TV shows.
SPOUSE 1: Nickelodeon used to be so great.
SPOUSE 2: Rocko. Doug. Legends of the Hidden Temple.
SPOUSE 1: I was a Purple Parrots kind of girl.
SPOUSE 2: Silver Snakes for me.
SPOUSE 1: Doesn’t surprise me at all. What about Double Dare?
SPOUSE 2: The best! Remember that one game where they—
SPOUSE 1: Had to reach up inside the giant nose for the flag? Amazing!
SPOUSE 2: Whatever happened to Marc Summers? He was a god.
[Pause]
SPOUSE 1: Everything was better back when we were first dating.
SPOUSE 2: Remember that first date at the wine bar?
SPOUSE 1: So good!
SPOUSE 1: I liked her posts on Instagram. Every single one. Left hilarious, slightly self-deprecating comments. I watched her stories. Would occasionally ironically respond with the “laughing so hard I’m crying” emoji. Kept hitting those hearts and likes and shares over and over again. Although I made a clear point never to be the first one to like them so I wouldn’t come off as some kind of stalker.
SPOUSE 2: He wore me down at a point when I desperately needed a self-esteem boost.
SPOUSE 1: Thumbs up!
SPOUSE 1: We had matched on one of those old dating apps.
SPOUSE 2: Which one was it?
SPOUSE 1: Tinder?
SPOUSE 2: Maybe eHarmony?
SPOUSE 1: Raya?
SPOUSE 2: That was the one where you needed to get accepted, right?
SPOUSE 1: Yes.
SPOUSE 2: Then it couldn’t have been that one. I never got approved.
SPOUSE 1: Oh. Okay.
SPOUSE 2: Wait, I remember! We had matched on Bumble but she never messaged me.
SPOUSE 1 I wasn’t looking for anything serious at the time. And then a few months later after deleting and then reinstalling all my apps, we matched again on Hinge. But this time he ghosted me.
SPOUSE 2: I had a lot going on in my life!
SPOUSE 1: But then the next year we finally matched on OkCupid.
SPOUSE 2: And that was when we were both ready to date somebody seriously.
SPOUSE 1: It was so hard to meet people back in the day.
SPOUSE 2: I’m shocked that anyone ever actually got together.
SPOUSE 1: “Friends with benefits.” That’s what they used to call it.
SPOUSE 2: “Fuck buddies,” if you didn’t mind the crudeness.
SPOUSE 1 If you can’t find a functional relationship, it’s nice to at least be with someone with whom you have physical chemistry.
SPOUSE 2: Everyone insisted that it wouldn’t work.
SPOUSE 1: That one of us would grow emotionally attached and expect more from the other.
SPOUSE 2: But it wound up being the longest relationship either of us had ever been in up to that point.
[SPOUSE 1 stops, listening to a question from off-screen.]
SPOUSE 1: Oh, we never got married! Lord, no. Just slept together for three years until we met someone we actually cared about.
SPOUSE 2: Nope. It was purely physical and stayed that way.
SPOUSE 1: Turned out that we could be just friends.
SPOUSE 2: Because we’re well-adjusted adults. That’s what we do.
SPOUSE 1: We’d been working together for a few months and I wanted to ask him out, but corporate regulations and that HR seminar told me it would be ill-advised. And even if you do start dating, then everything gets really awkward around the office. So we just kept tiptoeing around what we could and couldn’t say.
SPOUSE 2: Was she interested?
SPOUSE 1: Did I misread the signals?
SPOUSE 2: Did I just send a text that could be taken out of context and screenshotted?
SPOUSE 1: We half-flirted at company parties and office bowling nights. Being just playful enough without ever acting on any impulses.
SPOUSE 2: But then we all got laid off when the company went bankrupt during the recession and we were finally able to date!
SPOUSE 1: And since we had no money we moved in together fairly quickly so we could both make rent.
SPOUSE 2: No more tiptoeing around it.
SPOUSE 1: And we’ve been stuck together ever since.
SPOUSE 2: Impossible to afford anything while living on your own.
SPOUSE 1: Friggin’ corporations.
SPOUSE 1: My buddy was going out with a complete nightmare, so he asks me to go to the bar and make the rescue call 20 minutes in. Something about a dead relative, a burst pipe, his apartment on fire. So I take a seat at the bar. And I see this girl.
SPOUSE 2: My friend was on a date with some douche and if she gives me the signal, I’m supposed to text with a reason for her to bail. Then I notice this guy. We start talking, and we really hit it off.
SPOUSE 1: Don’t think I ever made the rescue call.
SPOUSE 2: Same here.
SPOUSE 1: Whatever happened to them?
SPOUSE 2: No clue. I lost track of all my friends the moment we started dating.
SPOUSE 1: So she and I always had this “When Harry Met Sally” thing going. We’re friends but we have this flirty vibe about us.
SPOUSE 2: We always wind up sitting next to each other at dinner parties. Talking late into the night. Texting back and forth about new movies we want to see.
SPOUSE 1: And you start to wonder, “Is there something more going on here?”
SPOUSE 2: Should we be more?
SPOUSE 1: I was her non-threatening male friend who didn’t push her boundaries.
SPOUSE 2: And around the age of 34 that becomes exactly what you want in life. It’s comfortable.
SPOUSE 1: Anyway, it was New Year’s Eve and we figured that we should give it a shot. We owed it to ourselves.
SPOUSE 2: To date someone you already knew that you liked…
SPOUSE 1: To turn your friendship into something romantic…
SPOUSE 2: Everything would be so much easier if we got together…
SPOUSE 1: And if Harry and Sally could make it work…
SPOUSE 2: Then so could we!
[Pause]
SPOUSE 2: We have sex twice a month.
SPOUSE 1: More or less.