Guest Post from Alan

I've been asked to tell my side of the story, so to speak. I'll start with some background, so everyone will have a better idea of who all the players are, and then add in my part of how Alan met Helly, which is a slightly different story than of how Helly met Alan.

First, some background. While we have a lot of "blog friends" from all over the place, Mark, Nancy , Sandy and I all know each other in real life. I met Mark in 1983 when we were in college together. We discovered a mutual interest in juggling, and soon became good friends. Not long after that, we met Sandy. Mark and Sandy have been (outside of my family) the best friends I've ever had in my whole life. No matter where I've gone, or what I'd done, I knew I could always count on those two being there for me.

Some years went past, and we'd all moved on to other places and things, but we all managed to stay in touch. This was before email, so we relied on letters and phone calls and messages passed between each other to keep up with events. Sandy and Nancy had met at college, a year or so after I had moved on. In 1988, Sandy introduced Mark to Nancy. (I'll let Mark and Nancy tell their story in their own way). And in December of 1990, they were married . I was the Best Man, Sandy was a bridesmaid. I'm told there are pictures of me in a tux from the wedding.

Again, many years went past. I moved around a good bit, but always seemed to end up back in Georgia. In 1994 I moved back to Atlanta from Tulsa, OK, and I've been here ever since. And as always, Mark, Sandy, and now Nancy and Lachele (who met Nancy in grad school at UGA) have been the core group of friends that have always been there for me.

Ok, so much for the history lesson. Now, on to "How Helly met Alan", and "How Alan met Helly". In 2003 I got an email from Nancy, telling everyone that she was pregnant. In June, I went with my friend Lachele to a baby shower thrown by one of Nancy's cousins in Stone Mountain. I spent a lot of the baby shower hanging out with Mark, hiding in the living room and generally avoiding the baby shower action. I'm told that there was a pretty redhead at the baby shower, one of Nancy's best friends from High School. And I've also been told that I sat right across from her at lunch and carried on a conversation. But I honestly have no memory of meeting Helly that day. And don't think for a second that she's let me forget it...

Some months pass, and Nancy has the baby. I'd been reading Nancy's blog for awhile (in fact, it was Nancy who introduced me to blogs), and one day she mentioned that her friend Helly had started a blog . I followed the link, and after reading a few entries, sent her an email about a post I had found quite funny, because I'd seen the same thing happen several times myself. We started emailing back and forth, at first a few times a day, but quickly moving up to five or seven times a day. We shared some of the same interests, but were also different enough that it kept the conversations lively. Most notably, at first, was that we both loved Invader ZIM, a cartoon on Nickelodeon. The DVD for the first volume of Invader ZIM was coming out that week, and I mentioned it in passing, not expecting her to have ever heard of it. Instead, she sent back an email with 50+ of some of the funniest lines from the cartoon. Stunned, I looked over at my coworker Scott and jokingly remarked: "..I'm *so* going to marry this girl..". At this point I'm not even sure if I had learned that I had already met her. At first, our emails were about simple stuff - who are you, what do you do, so forth and so on. After a few weeks, though, it started to get a bit more personal, and somewhat more chatty, like emails between people who've been friends for a while. I'm sure if I were to post some of them, the vast majority of you would take one look, and start smacking me in the head for being oblivious to the obvious. But honestly, I just didn't get the hints. It had never occurred to me that she was interested in anything more than an email friendship. Going back and rereading some of them, I still don't always pick up on it. Yes, I am that obtuse when it comes to women and relationships. I will admit that I was kind of starting to hope she liked me, but I was too insecure to actually let myself believe it.

This leads us to the night of the David Sedaris book signing at the big Borders in Buckhead. As soon as Helly pulled in, driving the black convertible Sebring, I recognized her immediately. I figured she was following me around because we were the only two of our group that weren't rabid David Sedaris fans. So it was either stand in line with Nancy to get a book signed, or hang out with me. I just guessed that I was the lesser of two evils, so to speak. I did enjoy talking to her, and was looking forward to the next days emails. We exchanged a few emails the next day while we were both at work, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. That night, I got an IM from Nancy asking what I thought of the book reading, and more importantly, what I thought of Helly. After months of sitting on the side lines, Nancy had finally cracked and decided to intervene. Once she explained that Helly was actually interested in more than just being buddies, everything sort of clicked into place. I had been in the middle of an email to Helly at the time, so I finally got up all my nerve and asked her out. That was June 29, 2004. Our first date was on July 3, 2004. I drove out to her house, and we went out to eat at Applebee's, and then went to see Shrek 2. In January of 2005 I moved in with her, and on May 20, 2005 I asked her to marry me, and she accepted.

So know you know the backstory, and my side of the story. We haven't decided on when or how we're going to actually get married. We both know what we don't want, so we just have to figure out what we do want instead. We'll keep you posted.

Alan 29 May 2005