Our Eight Year Anniversary Special- Reminiscing on our 1st Year of Marriage

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. We are Courtney and Royce, The Ace Couple, and we are thrilled to have you for this extra special, super intimate, romantic reminiscent episode; for this week is our anniversary week. As of May 23rd, we have been together for eight years now. In the past we have done an episode about special event days and gift-giving and we’ve sort of fallen into the mindset that we prefer gifts to be sort of spontaneous and less forced for special romantic holidays, like Valentine’s Day. Sometimes even more like the Christmassy holidays. And of course anniversaries. But our very first anniversary without really discussing it ahead of time, we did both get each other a gift. Which I think is actually a little unlike us to not discuss things ahead of time like that and also to just do the thing. So I think we were both really surprised by each other and I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I think we’re both pretty darn romantic when we do decide to commit to holidays. Royce, tell the people what you did for me, on our first anniversary.

Royce: I found a neat looking, metal, spiky paperweight that fits very easily over four fingers.

Courtney: It is funny, how you can just sort of hold it in the palm of your hand and slip four fingers through it and it seems to just fit so perfectly. I personally have never owned such a paperweight as that before, but I was really over the moon. That was– that was about the best paperweight I’ve ever gotten in my life and it was very romantic. It was a nice addition to my blade collection. But today we’re not here to talk about the paperweight. Today we’re here to revisit my anniversary gift for Royce, because I wrote 365 “I love you”s and it’s kind of cute, but I don’t remember a damn thing that I wrote on any of these, eight years later. Seven years later.

Royce: I’m trying to remember when you gave me this and I started pulling them all out and reading them. Was there also, some sort of a printer debacle? Or did you have to cut them all with– by hand with scissors or something?

Courtney: Oh my gosh. So this is ridiculous, bordering on embarrassing. But let me refresh your memory of exactly how this went down. So, my original intention from, like, day one was to handwrite a different thing about you that I love, or a different thing about our relationship that I loved and everyday I wanted to handwrite something and keep a record of this in some kind of journal for the entire first year. A couple issues happened with that. One, some days handwriting things is just very difficult for me. A lot of pain in the joints and whatnot. And also we just don’t have any private secret rooms or places, or hiding spots really at all, that aren’t just free game for both of us. So I saw very little way that I could keep any sort of writings, or journals, or papers, totally secret from you because we just don’t really have any, any secrets. So I kept them in an Excel spreadsheet. Back before we had, like, shared Google Drives and things.

Royce: The last place I would think to look for something important, Excel.

Courtney: Honestly at that point, did you think that I would ever open an Excel spreadsheet and use it for my own personal anything, of my own volition?

Royce: Courtney is famous for completely freezing up at the thought of manually measuring something.

Courtney: I hate measuring, it’s my least favorite activity in the entire world.

Royce: So spreadsheet math, while not the same thing, probably also not very fun.

Courtney: Well, it’s not fun. But it’s also just, I don’t like keeping track of virtual documents and files either.

Royce: Oh, I know.

Courtney: But measuring aside. I just–

Royce: I know I’ve opened your Google Drives before and seen like 70 untitled documents, half of which are empty, half of which have notes in them.

Courtney: It’s a mess. I’m a mess. So, yeah, I kept these in an Excel spreadsheet somewhere where you would never look, because it would never once even occur to you that I would be doing this in this place. But then, when I did actually have to do something about this, I was like, “Well, I can still handwrite it all like within a day or two up to it.” Because I can– I can hide this for a day. But oh, no, I was not about to write that much. My, my wrist couldn’t take it. Is not going to happen. So it’s like, “Well, I guess I have to print all of these out.” And in order to do that I literally went to, like, an Office Depot and brought it on like a flash drive and had them printed all out. And I used one of those big like, guillotine choppers.

Royce: Okay.

Courtney: To chop them all.

Royce: I was gonna say–

Courtney: Like several pages at a time.

Royce: I was going to say, I don’t even remember if we owned a printer at that time.

Courtney: I don’t think we did. Well,

Royce: I got–

Courtney: Might have, but not had like any ink in it or had it hooked up to anything.

Royce: True. I got really crafty for a while and just didn’t own a printer scanner and totally hand-wrote signatures, took a picture of them, photoshopped them onto a couple of documents.

Courtney: You photoshopped them onto documents!?

Royce: I was like, “I can get this thing signed tonight, or I can have to go to a public place and interact with people tomorrow.” And so, I chose the former.

Courtney: Of course, that’s really funny. This is why we just need more documents that allow e-signing. But yes, so here I was in the middle of the day, because this was back when you still had an office that you went to to work. So I still had, I still worked from home and I had free reign of the house during the day. So, midday.

Royce: Back in– back in the beforetime.

Courtuney: The beforetime…

Royce: The long, long ago.

Courtney: The long, long ago, Courtney went to an Office Depot to print out these cheesy little romantic messages about all the things I love about you. Using this damn guillotine chopper just to try to cut down on time. And I was like, “Let’s see. I think I can get five pages at a time.” But, but then I had all of these, you know, little skinny strips of paper with all these printed things typed and I was like, “Well, there’s no pretty way to present this to you.” Because it’s not like beautiful calligraphy and in a handwritten journal like I originally intended. So I – who previously was a store manager of a Things Remembered once upon a time – remembered that, that’s a place that exists.

Royce: You remember the things!

Courtney: I did. I did remember the things. So I went to the things. I had to go to the mall. I went to the mall for you. I went to the mall and I was hoping for some kind of beautiful box, something very decorative, but I had to get really creative because they did not have any sort of thing like that. So I found a vase, just literally like a vase with a little bit of cut crystal at the base, and I went, “Yep, that’ll work.” I had them engrave the words “365 I love you’s” on it. And I just shoved all of these little scraps of paper inside.

Royce: They were mildly difficult to get back out just now.

Courtney: It was not my most aesthetic decision, but I had one day to get all of this together. So, to get all of this into a physical format. And yes, you got home from work that day. I gave you this vase. I really didn’t know how you were gonna react, but I wanted to do it so I did it anyway. And to my delight you really liked it. You, you got a bit emotional and that made me happy. But yeah, we just have this vase now and it’s just part of the decor in, in a part of the house now. But we have not touched these since that first anniversary, so yeah, the– the scraps of paper have now taken the shape of the vase. And we have laid them out on the table, and we’re just gonna go through them and we’re gonna see…

Royce: I don’t imagine we’re going to read all 365, mostly for time sake. I don’t think there’s anything too personal on here that we wouldn’t say, but I can’t remember what’s written on these.

Courtney: I can’t remember what’s written on these, but we’re about to find out.

Royce: You told me the first time that I did this, that it was impressive that I got them all out without tearing any of them. So, let’s see if we can do that again.

Courtney: Yes, let’s… I wonder if there are going to be any like forgotten memories that we’re going to unlock.

Royce: Probably.

Courtney: Yeah. These are literally just knots of paper, and we’re needing to untangle very carefully so as not to tear them.

Royce: The first one is: “I love you because you tease me about getting emotional about sappy things.”

Courtney: Well, that’s true. I– I cry so frequently that I had a neurologist try to give me medication that I absolutely did not need, because he was bought by some kind of drug company that told them that crying too much was actually a neurological disorder. And when I, when I went in for other testing, they were testing me for like multiple sclerosis and like very serious things. And so I’m doing all of this admission paperwork, and one of the forms was like, “How often have you cried in the last month?” It was like one time, two times, 5+ times, more than 10 times, and so I’m, like, checking these off. And it’s like “Yes or no. I often cry when I watch movies.” And I’m like, yes, I do often cry when I watch movies and they’re like, well, you know, that’s a neurological disorder. Here let’s give you a doggie bag of medication for you to try. Stuff that once you start taking it, you’ll have to be weaned off of. So you’ll need to get a prescription anyway, after this if you start taking it. I was like, oh no, no, thank you. I requested that paperwork and it was literally branded with the drug company. So anyone who’s not in America right now is gonna be, like, horrified, but that happened.

Royce: Yeah, you got a sampler bag of drugs with withdrawal effects.

Courtney: Yes, a doggy bag of drugs because the drug company paid my doctor to give it to me. I was like, no, I actually like that I– I cry when I’m happy. Thank you very much. Although, sometimes you get emotional when I get emotional and I like that. I think you’re more inclined to get emotional because of my emotions then your own.

Royce: I think that’s true. And I don’t have an explanation for that. But there is a very social, sort of vicarious emotional state that I have. And I don’t know if that’s somehow intertwined with possible neurodivergence and, like, social anxiety. Maybe I’m just hyper aware of everyone around me, and so when everyone around me– when I assume that people around me are feeling a particular emotion I somehow, like, experience that as well.

Courtney: This next one, I think perhaps some of our listeners can attest to: “I love you, because your voice is suave and soothing.”

Royce: You’re the one who usually gets comments for a radio voice.

Courtney: Only twice. I remember both of those comments vividly because you have no idea how much that means to me. I’m very self-conscious about my voice.

Royce: This one just says: “I love you, because you accept me for everything I am.”

Courtney: Oh gag. That’s basic Courtney from seven to eight years ago. Well, here’s one: “I love you because of our aggressive nuzzling wars.”

Royce: Uh…

Courtney: Aggressive nuzzling! We still sometimes kind of do this when we’re really silly, but it’s less of a thing now. I forgot how much of a thing that used to be.

Royce: I can’t even remember it being that much of a thing.

Courtney: It’s just like, shove your nose into the other’s neck and– and nuzzle, apparently aggressively.

Royce: Yeah, you still kind of do that when you’re– when you have energy and don’t know what to do with it and like it’s bedtime and you’re not sleepy.

Courtney: Yes.

Royce: Did I get the Basic Courtney Bunch?

Courtney: Maybe… Or maybe most of these are basic. I do remember at one point that, when I was looking through all of these right before printing them, there were several that I had just duplicated without realizing it, because I was writing these spaced apart. So I did have to do a few of them last minute, like, “Oh, I already wrote that basically. Gotta change that.”

Royce: This one says: “I love you, because you’ve been able to chip away at my usual learned caution.”

Courtney: Hmm. That’s a good one. “I love you because I can’t imagine my life without you now.” Ah… Oh man! Are just– are a lot of these going to be basic? I’m disappointed in myself. This one. This one is very special for all the reasons. “I love you, because you’re the reason for all of my wishes on every dandelion seed.” Do you want to tell them or shall I?

Royce: I can do this one. So apparently in all of the random Wiki-ing that I normally do, I had never really read up on dandelions.

Courtney: And dandelions are very special to me.

Royce: I did not realize at the time that when they’re all white and poofy that they’re basically, end of life.

Courtney: Yeah. It’s like, the flower has died and now it’s just for seeds to disperse.

Royce: Right. And so I was doing some yard work at one point in time and there were dandelions in the yard. And you had already told me a story about your great-grandmother and them being special. So I picked a few that were in this white poofy stage, and put them in a little glass container with some water, not understanding that that was futile.

Courtney: It was the cutest thing in the entire world. When you walk in with this, like, plastic cup of water, and a bouquet of dead dandelions for me.

Royce: To be fair in years past that you would keep bouquets of dead roses around the house.

Courtney: Oh, yes, we still have– Well.

Royce: We threw them out because you’re allergic to dust.

Courtney: We kept one bouquet. The very first bouquet of red roses that you ever brought to me. Is, is still dead and on a shelf. But we did just have bouquets of dead flowers in just about every room of the house for a long period of time, because I think flowers are just as beautiful, if not more so, after they have died and dried. They really added to the decrepit, gothic beauty of our home for a while. But yes, I’m very, very, very allergic to dust. And those allergies got a lot worse. And believe it or not, but dead dried flowers are not easy to keep free of dust. So I tragically had to throw most of our dead flowers away. But yes, that was a very, very special day when you brought me those dandelions. I just thought that was the sweetest thing.

Courtney: So, yes, you also just absolutely like had my mother just rolling and cackling as I recounted this story to her. Because when I told you that there was really no reason to put al– already dead dandelions in a glass of water, and you countered with, “Why do they poof-splode?” And my mom thought that was just the funniest thing ever, and that was the moment when she realized that you actually have a really good sense of humor. Because by that point in time, I don’t think you’d really, like, let your guard down around her yet. Because you know, we mov– I moved out of State so she now lives closer to us, but she hadn’t even moved down here yet. So she’d maybe only seen you in person a couple of times at this point. But yes, dandelions are very special to me, because I don’t know who decided in America that dandelions are weeds that need to be killed, but I want to kick that person, because they are beautiful flowers. They flourish, they are actually quite beneficial. There were certain periods of time where people would actually remove grass so that dandelions had more room to flourish, instead of what we have now as the vice-versa. And they’re also– I mean before they poof-splode they’re edible and you can make tea and things with them. And so, food is good.

Royce: I vaguely remember as a kid, either doing this myself or knowing some people who picked dandelions and, like, split them open because there was water inside.

Courtney: Hmm. That’s interesting. All we did was hold dandelions up to our chins to determine whether or not we like butter. But yeah, so most people, like, growing up like, “Oh dandelions are weeds!” Like, “Get those out of here.” But my great-grandmother liked dandelions, and her name was Lucy. And “Lucy likes them” was kind of the saying, because the– the story I heard when I was very young was that all of the kids in the neighborhood would pick dandelions because, you know, kids see yellow flowers and just sees flowers, not weeds that are a menace to the suburban dream or something or another. And all the parents in the neighborhood would be like, “Get those weeds out of the house!” But the neighborhood kids knew that Lucy liked them. So that was always “But Lucy likes them.” And so, they started just bringing dandelions to my great-grandmother. And she did actually have a flower garden and she did actually have a food garden. So she was a gardener but she still liked dandelions. And I mean, dandelions I think are really just special and they get a bad rep.

Courtney: They are very much a symbol of just like rebirth, and change and hope with the wishes and I think they’re very cool. So they mean a whole lot to me. And the fact that you just knew that I liked dandelions and you picked me a bouquet of them, oh my heart. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are not a romantic. But also today of all days that we’re saying this, fuck whatever neighbor called the city on us today, because we don’t kill our dandelions in our yard. We literally just this morning woke up to a note from the city that’s like, “The weeds in your yard are too tall. You must cut them now. And we’re going to re-inspect.” It’s like, hmm cute, cute. Dandelions deserve better. Justice for dandelions. Dandelions have just as much right to be here as we do and I will die on this hill. Okay, read the next one before this turns into “Courtney rants about dandelions for an hour.”

Royce: This one just says: “I love you, because I love how effortlessly you can take away so many of my fears.”

Courtney: Whew, that’s a good one. Hmm, Royce, I’ll defer to you. Am I allowed to tell the people that?

Royce: Let’s skip that one.

Courtney: Okay.

Royce: This one says, “I love you because you kiss my forehead.”

Courtney: Oh, yeah. I do like forehead kisses. Forehead kisses are cute. Earlobe kisses, eyelid kisses are all very cute. We have very much as, as an asexual married couple gotten to a point where it’s like, why do people make out? Why? Why is french kissing a thing? That does nothing for me. This one says, “I love you because you’ve been able to give me an all new life that I absolutely adore living.” That is still exceptionally true. Perhaps even more so, as the years passed. I was a miserable little husk of a human for nearly my entire life, starting at a very young age, before I met you and – I don’t want to do the corny, sappy thing, like, “It’s only you and nothing else.” Because I definitely lived in a city that was very toxic to me, one that I definitely wanted to escape even before meeting you. And so the fact that I was able to get out of the city that was so unkind to me and also sort of started new in a new place, while also being with the love of my life, that certainly helped. But the added financial stability of being partnered with someone who had an income, gave me the freedom to then start my business and become an entrepreneur, and do a lot of things that would have been nearly impossible if I had stayed completely single, if not impossible, at least pushed back by years and years and years.

Royce: Keeping in on this deep meaningful note, trend: “I love you because we can watch anime together.”

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah, that was actually… That was one of the points that kind of sold my– some of my best friends on you, before they met you in person.

Royce: Oh, yeah, you mentioned her on this podcast before, your QPR friend who got you on to OkCupid in the first place?

Courtney: Yes.

Royce: Who also messaged me at some point and was like–

Courtney: So, she messaged you like, while we were still having our first conversation, because– If anyone remembers back to our asexual love story, episode, she would occasionally send me links and be like, “This is your new husband.” And I had just no interest in these people. So while I was having my first conversation with you, I sent her a link to your profile and I was like, “No, this is my new husband.” And that is exactly what happened. We did get married. And so I didn’t even know this at the time because neither of them told me right away, but she immediately reached out to you and didn’t she also asked you if you owned a top hat? Because I asked you if you owned a top hat in my first message to you. And I think she also asked without my prompting, because she also knew me all too well.

Royce: Yes that happened.

Courtney: And did you just randomly get to talking about anime?

Royce: Actually, you brought up anime. During this conversation, I mentioned that you had passed along the word that they wanted me to watch Princess Jellyfish. And I said, “Yeah, I went ahead and watched it several months ago.

Courtney: Oh, yeah, because then for like, I don’t know the next month or so, until I actually met you in person, she was just like referring to you as the time traveler. So yes, I’m, I’m a little afraid to actually dig back into those old early messages, but I don’t know. Maybe– maybe if the audience likes this little trip down memory lane, maybe– maybe that’s a next year anniversary, or a ten year anniversary. Do you think we’re still going to be doing this podcast in two years?

Royce: Possibly.

Courtney: If we have enough to say. If the people continue to listen, we will continue to talk. “I love you because you can teach me new things.” Do you remember when you taught me how to code? And I did it very successfully. All on my own, no help whatsoever?

Royce: Was that the “how to automate cookie clicker” thing?

Courtney: Cookie clicker! You helped me hack cookie clicker. Oh my gosh, I forgot that we did this. This was very cute of us. “I love you because we would draw things back and forth by text.” Oh my gosh. That was early, early, early. Do you remember? That’s a secret memory.

Royce: Draw things via text…

Courtney: Yeah, we would– I don’t even know what we used. But we would like, send a picture of something that we just drew on the phone and then we’d add to it and send it back. Back and forth like that.

Royce: Oh, I don’t know what probably discontinued Google thing that was.

Courtney: I have no idea.

Royce: But no, I know. Yeah, I remember now.

Courtney: That was old school. “I love you because you let me lean on you when I’m having trouble walking.” Oh my gosh. I was so happy. Just very recently we got a comment on one of our older podcast talking about disability, when I mentioned how sweet and surprisingly rare it is that you slow down to keep pace with me and never get frustrated that I’m going slower, walk ahead of me, and one of our listeners commented and was like, “OMG Royce– Royce slows down and walks with you?” And at first, I feel like you were really shocked that that was such a rarity and that most people are jerks and we’ll just blame the disabled person for being slow, but that’s a really, really, really important thing.

Royce: “I love you because of how easily you can pop my back.”

Courtney: You are very good at popping my back. I also just saw one that was like, “I love you because you rub my back when I’m sore.” But in recent years, like, since then, we’ve gotten very serious about back rubs. We have, like, technology for that now. Like a massage gun. You just started cracking up. What did you find?

Royce: “I love you because you pick me up and won’t let me down when I’m feeling feisty.”

Courtney: [bursts laughing] What was that from?

Royce: I don’t know.

Courtney: “I love you, because you used dance choreography to describe computer programming to me.”

Royce: Specifically the game design aspect of programming.

Courtney: And it must have worked because, hey, I hacked Cookie Clicker, all by myself, with no help whatsoever. And I could do it again. Don’t make me prove it.

Royce: I think it was specifically the idea of stage makeup, and stage mannerisms being similar to how, sort of, old-school 2D games would have to choose their pixels wisely to convey emotion, because they had so little resources to work with.

Courtney: Following off of that: “I love you because you’ve given me my first – in parentheses – (teeny tiny) spark of interest in technology.” See, this one’s interesting to me because I don’t remember this happening within the first year, but I feel like it just occasionally happens, every couple of years. “I love you because you get me vitamins because you want me to be healthier.” I don’t know why you got me vitamins in the first year, but–

Royce: I don’t remember. There must have been a conversation, because I’m pretty sure I’ve known for a long time that if you are eating a fairly varied healthy diet, and also have a body that can actually absorb nutrients properly, vitamin supplements are unnecessary.

Courtney: But I don’t absorb things properly. No one knows how the hell I absorb things, but it’s not the normal way.

Royce: “I love you because you have the best taste in stuffed animals.”

Courtney: Oh you do have! Oh my gosh! It wasn’t just the paperweight. It’s all clear to me now. Do you remember? I’m gonna be back. There were two other anniversary gifts. Now, help me remember. Did you get these two boys at exactly the same time? Or was it like you got me the Ephalent and then the Boonball later?

Royce: I don’t remember. It may have been both. It may have been a big one/little one situation.

Courtney: Big one/little one! Always got to have the big one/little one. I feel like I took the little Ephalent with me, like the first time I went back to visit people in Sioux Falls without you. And I feel like, that’s why you got me little Ephalent. But that was also when you just, like, downloaded ridiculous YouTube songs and set alarms throughout the entire weekend to go off randomly.

Royce: I feel like it makes sense to get the thing that punches and the thing that is immune to punches at the same time.

Courtney: Mmm.

Royce: Because the Boonball is definitely throw/hittable.

Courtney: So you thought, “Hmm, if I give Courtney a very dangerous paperweight, she’s gonna feel feisty. So I better get a great big round stuffed baboon so she can throw that at me and that will not cause irreparable damage.”

Royce: I don’t believe I thought that but I’m not going to argue that it might have been a strategy.

Courtney: All right. Well, Booneball and Ephalent are gonna sit right here with us.

Royce: And the stuffed animal thing came about because you used to have quite the collection.

Courtney: I did! I did. Have I– I don’t think I’ve told this story on the podcast. So right before I moved down here, I lived in a very shitty, run down, falling apart trailer-house. So I had a house worth of things, like I had my own furniture, I had stuff. And that’s why when I moved down and, Royce being in an apartment, we didn’t stay for more than a month, because we were looking for a place big enough to accommodate both of our things. But I still had a lot of things I didn’t necessarily want to bring down here and many of those included my spoils from the carnivals and the fairs where I frequently won very, very large carnival game prizes. Some of them I won legitimately, some of them I conned the carnies out of. But I had, like, a life-sized E.T., I had like one massive, like, rubber ducky stuffed animal. Just like these huge, huge stuffed things. And lots of them. And I wasn’t about to bring all of those down here because we had a limited amount of room in the storage pod that we were shipping down.

Courtney: And I thought about, you know, donating them to something like a Goodwill, but I also decided it was a golden opportunity to be exceptionally weird and give someone a story that would forever keep residence in their mind. So I just drove to, like, the middle of a country road with all of these massive stuffed animals just like squished into my car. Just overflowing popping out of the windows. And I just left all of them, lining all up and down a country road that ended at a dead end. And I don’t know who found them. I don’t know what they thought when they did. But I hope it was weird for them. So Royce, I remember that this story exists, but I don’t remember the details. So, help me out here. Our first meal together was Chipotle, which was a debacle, but Why exactly did I write “I love you because you steal Chipotle hot sauce.”?

Royce: Oh… So, the little town that I grew up in didn’t have a Chipotle. The first time I had had Chipotle, was when I lived with a few roommates. And one day while going to get some food, one of them just grabbed one of the little hot sauce bottles and threw it in their bag with their food and we took it home. And so that became a habit.

Courtney: [bursts laughing] Scofflaw.

Royce: I have a few here. “I love you because you’re the biggest, most pleasant surprise of my life,” followed by “Because lying upon your chest is the most comfortable thing in the world.” And “Because you have the best cuddles.”

Courtney: You do have pretty good cuddles, I’m not gonna lie. I wasn’t even terribly fond of cuddling until I met you if I’m being perfectly honest.

Royce: This one says, “I love you because you’re a – quote – “cisgender, hetero-romantic, non-vanilla, borderline asexual.” Is that what my profile said when we met?

Courtney: I… Don’t… think… that sounds right. I– My memory explicitly says that you had the words hetero-romantic asexual.

Royce: Okay. This cisgender thing is definitely– has been debunked at this point.

Courtney: Debunked, false, antiquated. “I love you because of your incredibly impressive eyebrows.” And also “I love you because of your long flowing hair,” the hair started it all, really.

Royce: “I love you because I catch myself smiling uncontrollably when I think of you.”

Courtney: I do be doing that though. I think– I think some of these that I wrote was still Courtney being like, “Wow. So this is what aesthetic attraction is like.” Because I have had so little aesthetic attraction in my life that you are such an anomaly. So some of these I’m reading and it’s like, “I love you because the shape of your nose is perfect” and “your eyebrows are impressive” and this is literally just Courtney being like, “You’re the only person in the world I’ve ever looked at and been like that’s an attractive human, that I’m saying that because I think it and not because I think other people think it.”

Royce: I’m also seeing a number of ones that are like younger Courtney being like, “Oh physical contact is okay, sometimes, I guess.”

Courtney: Yeah, it’s okay, fine. It’s fine. I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not but I said, “I love you because of how very humble you are,” which I don’t know, because it could go either way. Because I think publicly and around other people, you are naturally very shy and humble, but when we’re also together sometimes, just for the sake of comedy, you will intentionally say something that is not humble and I’ll be like, “Oh and you’re humble.” So I don’t know if that was genuine or sarcasm.

Royce: Both kind of fit. I don’t try to be overly dismissive of my own, like, talents or abilities, or brag. I would like to be more accurate, unless there’s comedy involved and then, whatever is funniest in the moment.

Courtney: I strive to be accurate unless comedy is at play.

Royce: This one says, “I love you because you’ve assumptively spoken about our relationship being long-term right from the beginning.”

Courtney: When you know, you know. “I love you because I couldn’t have printed these notes without your help.” I can so tell that some of these were written on vastly different days, because I can tell some days I was feeling poetic and romantic and some days I was just being really bland or a little bit silly. Hmm. “I love you because of how often we just stop saying the first syllable of words.” That persists still to this day. One of my biggest fears going into this podcast was that since we at home have our own kind of like, shorthand, and we’ve also discussed all of these topics just over the course of years, on our own time, at our own table, that we’re going to say something assuming the other is totally on the same page but if we get too on-the-same-page-y, that the audience won’t know what we’re saying. I think we’ve avoided that for the most part, but we definitely when we’re at home just drop the first syllable of every more than one syllable word. And I don’t know how that started or why we still do it.

Royce: I wouldn’t say every, it’s certain words.

Courtney: Just about.

Royce: Sometimes. “I love you because you took aforementioned-friend’s advice to, quote, actively engage in courtship with me.”

Courtney: Did she tell you to do that? That’s cute. I love her. She’s the one I played Cookie Clicker with. We had a cookie clicker that was running for like months.

Royce: The first message from her actually said, “I heartily approve of any and all courtship that you may pursue.”

Courtney: She had you blessed right from the start. That’s adorable.

Royce: That message ended with “please purchase a top hat.”

Courtney: She knows me so well, and you did, you did purchase a top hat. It was a horrible one. You– you really have to work on your taste in top hats.

Royce: It was a cheap top hat for the purpose of the gag.

Courtney: Hey, it’s the thought that counts. We rented you a better top hat when we took our vampire portraits.

Royce: “I love you because you humor me when I win free things.”

Courtney: Now what was that in the first year?

Royce: Was that all of the “you might get a gift if you agree to being sold to for an hour,” sort of things?

Courtney: Maybe one of them, but I feel like a lot of those happened in this house after the first year, because I famously like to fuck with door-to-door salesman. It was Direct Buy. My friends, if you ever attend any sort of convention for newlyweds or homeowners or anything, and there’s a company called Direct Buy run in the opposite direction.

Royce: “I love you because you bring me tea or coffee when I come to your office.”

Courtney: Oh, you did do that back when offices existed.

Royce: “I love you because you watch adorable little children’s movies with me.” We still watch Disney movies and whatnot.

Courtney: It’s true. We do.

Royce: And sometimes things that we watched as kids just because we hadn’t– haven’t seen them in a long time.

Courtney: Was much more a Miyazaki gal than a Disney gal. “I love you because you didn’t get scared away by my general creepiness.”

Royce: Just the general kind, not the specific kind?

Courtney: Apparently. Well, apparently you had to not get scared away by the general creepiness in order to learn of the specific creepiness.

Royce: “I love you because you always research treatments for whatever is ailing me because sometimes self-diagnosis is a must.”

Courtney: Yeah. Is that something you already knew before meeting me? Or was that a learned situation after the fact. Were you like, “Oh doctors do nothing.”

Royce: I think I’ve always tried to figure things out on my own to some degree.

Courtney: Hmm. That makes sense.

Royce: “I love you because sometimes you let me have your blood when you get a cut.”

Courtney: It’s true. That was definitely a selling point. Yeah, ha ha ha. This– this is definitely OG Courtney and Royce: “I love you because we can be ridiculous playing Sneak King in Burger King crowns.”

Royce: Oh, that was very– that was a very time-appropriate one.

Courtney: That was so good. We learned that Sneak King was a game that Burger King actually made where you play that creepy-ass Burger King mascot, and you sneak up on people to deliver them food. And we went to like three different Game Stops before we found one and then we got veggie burgers at Burger King and asked for Burger King crowns for… [mock coughing] our kids, and sat cross-legged on the floor in Burger King crowns, playing that game and eating. Mmm, the most contentious ongoing argument we have had to date. Are you ready for this? “I love you because we argue about which of us has weird ears and the weird nose, in parentheses, it’s you.”

Royce: I don’t think that argument’s ever going to be solved and I don’t trust the internet to arbitrate.

Courtney: I– I disagree. This needs to be a Twitter poll.

Royce: It would need to be more than one Twitter poll.

Courtney: A series of Twitter polls?

Royce: Well when focusing on nose and one focusing on ears.

Courtney: Hmm, I see.

Royce: Like is it more normal for your nose to be rigid and to hold its shape, or to be super squishy?

Courtney: So my nose is squishy and flexible, like it moves around a whole lot, and I can, like, push it up and make like a pig snout kind of a shape. And– and your nose doesn’t move at all, like at all. And I don’t understand.

Royce: And on the ear side, most of my ear is pretty flexible, it doesn’t really hurt. For some reason yours don’t bend without pain.

Courtney: I don’t know why your ear cartilage moves the way it does. Like my earlobes are flexible and move a lot. But your cartilage, you can just fold it in half and I don’t understand.

Royce: “I love you because you cried just from looking at me cry.”

Courtney: Yes. Yes, you did do that. You do occasionally do that. You did that, the very first weekend we ever were together in the same room.

Royce: Speaking of various special gifts and dates: “I love you because you got me a book scented candle.”

Courtney: Full story on that in Ace Couple’s guide to giving gifts.

Royce: What kind of mood was I in for this one? “I love you because of the one time you called me your darling flittermouse beauty of the night.”

[Courtney cackling]

Royce: I feel like that was half in jest.

Courtney: I don’t think so. I think you were looking up Victorian slang terms of endearment and found flittermouse and tried it out on me. And I knew exactly what that was, and what it meant. And it was my favorite thing in the entire world.

Royce: I think you prompted flittermouse. I think you told me about that word.

Courtney: Did I tell you about flittermouse? It’s a great word. Flittermouse is a very good word. You did get in a couple of, like, really uncharacteristic moods in that first year, because also you wrote me a poem. That I wanted to save but you texted it to me and that was on my phone that got, like, ejected from my car in the car crash and also stolen immediately thereafter.

Royce: Wasn’t that because you told me to write you a poem or–

Courtney: Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to do it. I was like–

Royce: I feel like there’s another time also when you’re just like, “Tell me a story.”

Courtney: Yeah. It was like, “I’m bored. Write me a poem” and you did. You did. You did it!

Royce: That was a “challenge accepted” moment.

Courtney: This looks like we just dumped out a paper shredder onto the table. Does anyone have paper shredders anymore? Most important documents don’t even get printed these days.

Royce: “I love you because you fell for my cheesy April Fool’s joke.”

Courtney: Yes. The first April Fool’s we lived together. You were at work and I went to Office Depot to buy construction paper and I cut a bunch of E’s out of brown construction paper and I put them in a pan, wrapped foil over it, texted you a picture of it and I was like, “I made brownes.” All one word but no E, like I intentionally did a typo. And waited for you to come home and open it, only to see that they were in fact brown Es. That’s like the extent of our pranks. Where we’re not a couple who regularly prank each other. Man I’m seeing typos, and I’m so disappointed in myself.

Royce: “I love you because you get concerned about my well-being, even when I don’t.”

Courtney: Yeah, that’s important. “I love you, because when we’re together in little shops we can communicate by holding up merchandise with cheesy quotes.” I remember doing that.

Royce: Being in shops?

Courtney: Yes. I remember being in shops. It’s been 84 years.

Royce: “I love you because we can read a webcomic aloud together.”

Courtney: Nimona and others. I heard that Nimona is getting picked up by another studio. It might actually happen as a movie. I’m so happy. These must have been ones that I just typed on that day when that very specific thing happened, because I don’t remember this: “I love you because you say awkward things, like ‘I like your general appearance, actually pretty much everything, I think you’re quite attractive’.” Such a romantic.

Royce: That was some early Ace Vibes exaggerated for a laugh. This one says “I love you because I feel like I can still grow as a person and still have all the room in the world for you in my life.”

Courtney: Oh, that’s good. Well done past Courtney. “I love you because you don’t shout.” Some of these are like filling in gaps in the timeline that have just blurred together over the years. “I love you because within the first evening of speaking I was offered the most important weekend invitation of my life.” So you invited me to come down the very first night we started talking? That’s what that sounds like.

Royce: Yeah, probably that makes sense. That sounds like something I would do. “I love you because I’ve never felt this healthy before.

Courtney: That’s true. But also now that you say that aloud, that is like a little too close to an Alanis Morissette lyric for my liking. Hey, it’s a good song though. I love Alanis.

Royce: “I love you. because when I’m having a bad day, you bring home pumpkin pie and chocolate.”

Courtney: Yeah, you did do that back when you were working at an office. There were definitely times you would, like, leave early so that you could stop by Costco on the way home and bring me treats if I was cranky. “I love you because I never knew that a love could be so strong.” That’s vaguely arospec Courtney being like, “Oh, this romance. I see.”

Royce: “I love you because I cannot predict your moves when we’re playing chess.”

Courtney: Ah, the way you play chess is very weird. “I love you because you take me to brunch often.” Do you remember brunch? Brunch that we didn’t make it home ourselves?

Royce: Vaguely.

Courtney: When we’d go outside to a place. A little vegan hipster place that served you Little Richard’s in Mason jars espresso and Coke? Yum. Hmm. We have an espresso machine now, but we don’t really keep soda in the house usually. But I’m halfway tempted to get a Coke just so we can make a little Richard someday, because now I remember that’s a thing.

Royce: “I love you because you don’t mind when I dress in unconventional ways.”

Courtney: Dare I say you even like such things?

Royce: Yeah, probably.

Courtney: I mentioned braving the mall for you. Courtney’s life hack, if malls still exist. I don’t know. I haven’t been to a mall since– since the quarantine. My life hack for going to malls, is if you must be at a mall and you must be in public with so many people in so many stores, wear a Victorian ball gown with full hoops, crinoline, because it’s almost guaranteed that there will be a small child who will be delighted by your presence and want to dance with you. And that will just be enough to make– make everything else okay. “I love you because you feed my weapon addiction.” I wrote that before you gave me the paperweight for our one-year anniversary.

Royce: What was before the paperweight?

Courtney: I don’t even know. Going back to the blood and general creepiness: “I love you because we both enjoy morbid things.” I feel like there are gonna be a couple of listeners out there who are going to recoil and be really surprised and perhaps even off-put by those comments, but like, since day one our profile picture has been Victorian vampire portraits. We haven’t been subtle.

Royce: “I love you because you broke Cookie Clicker and tried to teach me as well.”

Courtney: I tried, you succeeded. I have since hacked many video games, all by myself. Ever, ever since. I am Master Haxor.

Royce: MailChimp Fast Fives Grand Champion until they reset it.

Courtney: Oh my gosh. That’s a great story. So when I started my business, I started using MailChimp for my mailing list and they used to have this leaderboard for Fast Fives. Where when you clicked Send on your email, there would be like a chimp paw that was just kind of smacking the screen and it would say like, “high five.” And the first time I saw that, I was like, I want to give the chimp a high-five. So, I clicked on it when it smacked the screen and that instigated the surprise game Fast Fives and it was like, “Fast Fives! Game on!” And it’s just a bunch of chimpanzees that come from all different sides. But sometimes it’s not a chimp and sometimes it’s a foot and you don’t want to high five the foot. And sometimes it’s a knife. You definitely don’t want to high-five the knife. And I played it and had a grand old time and then Royce was like, “Yeah, I can hack that.”

Royce: The game was entirely front end HTML and JavaScript, and everything was tagged very nicely. So…

Courtney: I know exactly what all that means, for the record.

Royce: It was, it was pretty trivial to write a program that would just click things perfectly, very, very quickly.

Courtney: Yes, because it sped up as it went along. So, after it ran for like a minute, it was going so fast you couldn’t even see the graphics anymore. It was just like a white screen.

Royce: Well, that was because I artificially sped it up beyond the normal means.

Courtney: Oh my Gosh.

Royce: Because we can’t let this thing run for days on end to beat the high score.

Courtney: Even though we did. Because after we hacked it and got like immediate number one on the leaderboard, someone else, shortly thereafter did the same thing. So we did it again and did leave it running for a prolonged period of time. It was just ridiculous, but the leaderboard was like, it– it asks you for your Twitter handle. So it was my personal– I don’t want to say personal because I’ve never really used Twitter just for my personal account, but it was my business account that I set up when I started my business. Was the top number one on this leaderboard for a prolonged period of time. And occasionally, I would have random people tweet at me being like congratulations on being number one on Fast Fives.

Royce: You had a couple of developer accounts ask you how you did that.

Courtney: I did. Yes.

Royce: “I love you because you hate most people just like me.”

Courtney: I hate people. Shout out to Drag Race watchers. Willow Pill stans. Disabled trans queer rep. Yes. Well on the other side of that coin: “I love you because you’re the all-around best human being I’ve ever met.”

Royce: Do you remember the story behind this? “I love you because we can conspire to glitter-bomb people together.”

Courtney: Who were we trying to glitter-bomb?

Royce: I don’t remember.

Courtney: Who were we trying to glitter-bomb… Who did we have that much beef with at the time? I mean, now we have neighbors who are calling the city on us for our dandelions, but…

Royce: Sounds like a perfect situation for a glitter bomb.

Courtney: It does. I’m not gonna lie, it does. Oh my gosh, that’s gonna drive me nuts. Who… who?

Royce: I wonder if it was just the idea that glitter bombs exist that we were discussing.

Courtney: But if we were conspiring there’s a target. There’s a target there.

Royce: I mean, this was in Rental House. Maybe it was the landlord.

Courtney: Oh my gosh, maybe it was. Landlord, who was secretly Rush Limbaugh the whole time? See our episode on Shawnee bans roommates. “I love you because you almost exclusively wear jeans and a black T-shirt, just like a cartoon character.”

Royce: One I just saw said, “I love you because you don’t care about masculinity.”

Courtney: Yeah, that’s honestly a big selling point for me.

Royce: This next one says, “I love you because you’re weird”, which is also sort of what Little Robot Guy says.

Courtney: Well that was like our original, like, term of endearment. Like we would just constantly lovingly say “you’re weird” to each other. So the downside to doing this in an Excel spreadsheet was that you didn’t get the spell check that you would from a Word document. I’m lamenting the number of typos in these. Oh, here’s one. “I love you because you rub my nose when it’s hard for me to sleep.” That’s something that’s, like, ever since I was a child, a baby, like, my mother and grandmother would just very gently, like, stroke my nose going from the top all the way down and it would soothe me so much. And when I told you about that one night when I was having trouble sleeping, you just started running my nose like that and it put me right to sleep.

Royce: Coming off of the last one that I read, it says “I love you because you told me that you want to protect me – quote – ‘even though it’s stupid and masculine’.”

Courtney: Did you say that? I mean, you must have said that.

Royce: I must have said that, I don’t remember that. But coming off of the number of injuries you had, it makes sense.

Courtney: It does make sense. And just the number of people in my life, pre-you, who were just dreadful and abusive and awful.

Royce: Right. This was post-car-accident for everyone listening, so...

Courtney: This was also when you still identified publicly as a man.

Royce: Oh, yeah, that too.

Courtney: “I love you because driving to Kansas to meet you face-to-face was one of the biggest thrills I’ve ever experienced.” I’m guessing I meant the first time and not the car crash time, but maybe the car crash time. I didn’t mind it nearly as much as everyone else around me did.

Royce: That was also a thrill.

Courtney: Okay Royce, I need you to dig deep into the recesses of your memory because I don’t remember this: “I love you because you told off the jerk who stole my phone.” So my phone did get stolen immediately after that car crash, and in my mind I remember QPR-friend aforementioned telling off the jerk who stole my phone. I don’t remember this coming from you, but that seems very uncharacteristic. So, what on Earth did you do or say?

Royce: I know that both, friend and I were in contact and were sending– I almost said vaguely threatening, but I think it was overtly threatening messages.

Courtney: Little, little, little recap. We discussed this in probably a combination of ‘our asexual love story’ and ‘I almost became an asexual lingerie model’. Because, the reason why this was such an issue is that, well my phone got stolen while I was, you know, trying to plan moving and things. And so it was just horribly inconvenient, but I had photos from my first and only lingerie photoshoot on there. And I am someone who has, like, never taken nudes. I have never sexted. So, like in hindsight, these lingerie photos from an actual legitimate photoshoot, weren’t horribly raunchy, but in my younger asexual brain, that was like, “Nobody can ever see me in these,” and that’s half of the reason why I quit modeling. But whoever stole my phone just found those photos, the only pseudo-raunchy ones there were, and sent them out to a bunch of people on my contact list. So like you and my other friends knew that my phone was stolen before I did. Before I even realized my phone was gone. What were the threatening messages? What what, what could you have possibly said?

Royce: I don’t remember. I think we were trying to overplay our hands, on like having tracking on the phone or things like that to try to just get them to, like–

Courtney: “I will find you.”

Royce: Drop it, kind of things.

Courtney: Interesting. See that is super, super interesting because yeah, it makes sense that you conspired with other important people in my life with that. But you are normally so non-confrontational in just about every situation.

Royce: Yeah. I mean, there have been exceptions like when we were having landlord problems, you were also surprised by a couple of messages I sent that was like, “The thing that you’re trying to do is bullshit and also here are these three Kansas laws that you’re in violation of.”

Courtney: And that did surprise me. Because that’s normally my job is to– to threaten people with legal action. I’m normally the one who does that. But yeah, we did have one issue with a friend which is very much a later episode kind of a situation where you also did get very direct. But that’s exceptionally rare for you.

Royce: Right. And that was also a major breakdown in communication where I thought that the only hope of salvaging things was to be direct and to, like, throw everything out there.

Courtney: Spoiler alert. That friend was kind of acephobic. That was a big reason that we got to that conversation in the first place. And that’s very much why we want to dedicate our own episode to that eventually, when– when the wounds have scabbed over. Still a bit of a sore spot.

Royce: “I love you because on a tough day you’re willing to run a bath with bubbles, wine, and candles for me.”

Courtney: You still do that. You run baths for me and I love you for that.

Royce: This is a pre-pandemic one. “I love you because you make fun of idiotic people from work with me, even when you haven’t met them.”

Courtney: Yeah, yeah. Back when I was still using words like idiotic. Those are words I may in extreme cases used to refer to myself and my own neuroses, but I’ve pretty much phased out language like that being referred to other people.

Royce: There have been a lot of linguistic changes in the past 10-15 years, I feel like.

Courtney: Yeah. Definitely. I mean we learn, we grow, we better ourselves.

Royce: “I love you because our very first conversation was engaging and that we still, to this day, have stimulating ideas to talk about.”

Courtney: Yes. Mmm. “I love you because we have loads of differences.” Which is interesting because we also have loads of similarities, but I don’t think I would have written that. Maybe I did. I don’t know there’s 365 of these damn things. “I love you because you still text me when you’re at work.” That’s fun because we still text each other when we’re working in exactly the same house, but just in different rooms. “I love you because we can spend a whole day at an art gallery together.” Do you remember art galleries?

Royce: You did actually write out: “I love you because you’re the first person I’ve been aesthetically attracted to.”

Courtney: I did say that? Within the first year?

Royce: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: Fascinating! “I love you because I have confidence in our future.” And that confidence was not unfounded. We’re doing pretty okay.

Royce: “I love you because you put up with all of the silly, out of context things that aforementioned friend and I send you.”

Courtney: Mmm. Yes, we must have been a handful. Did you ever give her a cookie? I feel like early on it was determined that you owed her a cookie.

Royce: She promised me a cookie!

Courtney: She promised you?

Royce: And I never got a cookie.

Courtney: Oh, dang. If you’re listening to this, you know who you are, get on that. You owe him his cookie. Remember we’re vegans now.

Royce: “I love you because you remembered my favorite cereal to bring me when I was hurt.”

Courtney: Woo! Car crash stories. There– There was a lot to love that weekend. This is also interesting when just– juxtaposed with the “you’re the first person I’ve been aesthetically attracted to” and also the comments about you not valuing masculinity: “I love you because you tend to keep a clean shaven face.” Never been much for facial hair. Actually. I do know a couple of women who rock facial hair a lot better than any man that I’ve ever met. But what even is gender? “I love you because you decide programming a coin-flipping application is easier than finding a coin to flip.” That was like the very first weekend I came down to see you. And we were just trying to decide, like, what movie to watch or something. And I was like, “Do you have a coin to flip?” And you’re like, “I can do one better.” Boom, computer, program, program.

Royce: In hindsight, the fact that I was using a phone to control a computer that was plugged into the TV, made it more complicated and difficult to type, but I didn’t need to get off the couch.

Courtney: “I love you because sometimes you want to be the little spoon.”

Royce: Both spoons are comfy sometimes

Courtney: We are verses in our spoonage. “I love you because you can surprise me so easily when you want to.”

Royce: You know what this reference was? It says, “I love you because sometimes our love is comparable to unicorns and dragons.”

Courtney: What the hell? No, I don’t know what that means because I think this was before dragons took off in the Ace community. And also have we just been getting re-obsessed with unicorns over the years? Because I would have thought that we only took an interest in unicorns like two years ago, tops.

Royce: I have no frame of reference for this one.

Courtney: What does it mean? We are, we are mythical. “I love you because you never doubt me.”

Royce: We just talked about this. “I love you because you still haven’t forgotten that aforementioned friend owes you a cookie.”

Courtney: I feel like for the first couple of years you would just occasionally bring it up. Be like, “She still owes me a cookie.” “I love you because you’re interested in learning about the things that I like.” I think this is still true, eight years later, but “I love you because somehow I knew I would be here from the very first day I spoke with you.”

Royce: “I love you because you appreciate my accents, voices, and impersonations.”

Courtney: What impersonations did I do for you? I feel like that’s something I did when I was way younger, but I don’t remember doing as many impersonations as an adult.

Royce: I don’t remember impersonations. I feel like it was mostly accents.

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. “I love you because I have someone amazing to come home to.” I guess I did teach dance lessons right off the bat. So like, I’d come home late at night, but that very much feels like more something you would have said early on.

Royce: I was going to say, back in the time when you would leave the house and come home.

Courtney: I do remember the very first day that I lived down here, when you went out to work, you texted me in the middle of the day and said something along the lines of, like, “I just smiled because I just remembered that I have someone to come home to.” And I like, sobbed. Speaking of sobbed: “I love you because you sit with me even if I cry for a solid two hours.”

Royce: That one was more specific than the one I just read that was like, “You let me cry on your chest.”

Courtney: A lot of crying, we’ve established this. “I love you because I trust you with my life and my heart, which isn’t usually easy for me to do.” Some of the days she was tapping into the melodrama.

Royce: “I love you because you always tell me to have fun when I leave no matter what I’m doing.”

Courtney: Yes, that’s true. You still do that.

Royce: Even when I know it’s something you aren’t going to enjoy, like a meeting.

Courtney: Yes. So, this is so weird because there have been a couple of things where it’s like, “Oh, I forgot about that. But I remember now.” Or there were a couple of things that, like, I just have no idea what that very specific reference was. But there are a lot of things that we still, to this day, do but it has become so ubiquitous in our life that I don’t even notice it anymore. Like, at the time this was a new person that I was learning to live with and really appreciating all of these new silly little quirks. And now they’ve just become so normal that I don’t notice them anymore like I did in that first year.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: But they’re still happening.

Royce: “Have fun,” is like my “Okay. I’ll see you later” sort of thing.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: “I love you because you genuinely want to know about what I teach my dance students.”

Courtney: Hmm. Yes, I have given you a couple of impromptu dance lessons in the living room.

Royce: “I love you because you’re a creepy little person like me.”

Courtney: Cheers to the creepy little people of the world! Here’s another thing, where we still do, but I’m surprised to hear that we did it in that very first year: “I love you because we roast s’mores together in our fireplace.” That wasn’t even the same house. That was a different house. Apparently, that’s just been a thing we’ve always done.

Royce: So, is this one still true? It says, “I love you because my heart still seems to miss a beat when you walk into the room.”

Courtney: Figuratively speaking, yes. It is very much still true.

Royce: And when I’m trying to walk out of the room, you suddenly remember a variety of things to ask me to do.

Courtney: I can’t help it. It’s like my brain is on a lag and it only catches up and buffers once you’ve left the room. “I love you because you encourage me via meme, while you’re at work.” That’s another thing, you did that in the first year? You just made memes only to send them to me and not post anywhere else in the middle of your work day? Because you still do that sometimes.

Royce: I don’t think I generally made memes. Maybe in extreme situations where I couldn’t find one. “I love you because you are willing to dance with me in the living room.”

Courtney: I do love that. It’s still very good. “I love you because ‘you’re weird’ has become a term of endearment between us.”

Royce: “I love you because you have literally caught me when I’ve fallen.”

Courtney: Literally!

Royce: “I love you because you make me stop scratching myself.”

Courtney: Shout out to dermatillomania. Sometimes my brain goes, “Hey, you know what? You got too much of… skin, take it off!” And Royce will confiscate my hands when things get too bad. “I love you because I can sleep when I’m lying beside you.” I remember when I was diagnosed with like five simultaneous sleeping disorders before I met you. And lastly: “I love you because of the way you looked when you picked me up from my accident.” That image is seared into my mind as one of the most loving, concerned, relieved, just beautiful looks that I have ever seen in my life. And although I knew from the very first day we were talking together that we would be here, that was, sort of, last real confirmation that I wasn’t just out of my mind and that everything was going to be exactly the way I hoped it would.

Courtney: So I want to thank all of you who are here and indulging us in our sappy little romantic anniversary trip down memory lane episode. But hopefully this is just one small notch in the belt of acceptance and understanding that love can come in many different forms. And having traditional sexual attraction and being an allosexual person is not the only way to love, and it is not the only way to have an immensely fulfilling relationship with another person. And we have had a couple of people reach out to us over the last months asking how best to support our podcast, and of course, the easiest thing you can do is give us those follows, subscribes, likes, ratings, reviews. And we’ve tweeted about this on a few occasions, but we haven’t mentioned it on the podcast yet. But if you are so inclined, we do have a Ko-fi account where you can give us a little tip if you feel inclined to send us an anniversary gift. But for the most part, we just really appreciate that you are all here, you are listening and enjoying the content we have to provide. And here’s to year number eight of our marriage, and just about month number eight of our podcast! We appreciate you all so much, so we will talk to you all next time.