The story of Team Wy

Matthew and I met, small town, college bar, our eyes locked across the smoky tavern, and we felt the instant magnetism of destiny….

No, not at all like that.

My friend called me up, “Hey, I just got this new roommate, and I think you two should date. His name’s Matthew Wy and I think he’s a computer science major.”

Intriguing.

She set up a party at her house, and made sure I knew to look for him and flirt. It was college, of course, so it had to be a theme party. We riffed on the CK1 black and white ads that were plastered everywhere at the time, and we posed in skimpy clothes with tousled hair, trying to look as emaciated and drugged-out as the models in the ads did. My friend photographed the whole thing, and the stills turned out hilarious.

And then Matthew entered the room. Even though he had a girl I disliked draped all over him, desperately trying to claim him as her own, even though he was totally detached from her, I took one look at him and said, “I’m going to date him.” I just knew right away. I just didn’t know how hard it would be.

To mock the CK1 ads, where all the models looked strung out on heroin, another friend and I posed as junkies. She lolled back in a chair with a belt cinched around her arm above the elbow, and I sat beside her holding a spoon and looking into her eyes desperately.

In the corner, Matthew turned around to face the wall, and the flingy girl said, “Oh god that is SO tasteless.”

I ignored them.

After the photo shoot, I found Matthew sitting alone on the couch, smoking. I was ready with conversation points to get the ball rolling on our new relationship.

“Hey, I heard you were friends with Heather M. She’s totally one of my best friends and she told me how cool you are.”

Matthew: exhaled smoke, head turned away from me, muttered, “Mm-hm.”

OK, I was a little daunted, but willing to go on.

“I also heard you worked at the record store. Guess what? I’m friends with James W. who’s there too. Are you guys friends too?”

Matthew: exhaled smoke, head turned away from me, muttered, “Mm-hm.”

A third question, I don’t remember, met with the same response--Matthew: exhaled smoke, head turned away from me, muttered, “Mm-hm.”

I began to feel really humiliated that I was reaching out to this guy who was supposed to be my blind date, who was the object of obsession of a silly and careless girl I barely tolerated, and he was completely ignoring me, not even making eye contact.

I did the rudest thing a Southern girl could do. I got up and walked away without saying goodbye.

(Of course, he’s from Pennsylvania, so he had no idea how much I had just slighted him.)

I kept seeing him at my friend’s house, and we continued to be cold to one another, until one day I found him eating my ice cream.

Dorm freezers couldn’t fit a carton of ice cream, so I took my Edy’s chocolate chip cookie dough to my friend’s house to keep in her full-size freezer. I came over to eat some ice cream, and there he was, eating it by the spoonful out of the carton. I was a little put off, but I still knew that I would date him some day, so I had to make nice about sharing my ice cream. I grabbed a spoon,

“Hey, that’s my ice cream! I’m glad someone else is eating it because I never could have finished it on my own.”

“Oh. I wondered whose it was.”

In the kitchen, he was with a new, silly, hanger-on type of girl that he still wasn’t very interested in and my friend. The two girls ended up talking, bored with each other already, while Matthew and I ate ice cream. We had our first real conversation ever, and we both managed to genuinely feel good toward each other.

As luck would have it, there was another party at my friend’s house that weekend, and intermittently we chatted companionably again. I asked him to go to a very important private party that my English classmates were throwing the next weekend, and he said yes.

But that’s not where our relationship really began.

The day after my friend’s party happened to be Valentine’s Day. The photo-journalism department hosted an anti-Valentine’s Day ‘80’s themed party. I attended with my photo-journalism friends dressed in tight, torn jeans, a plaid shirt tied at the waist, and I painted my face with dashes of hot pink blush and blue eye shadow. It wasn’t a perfect outfit, but it was close enough. We danced to 80’s tunes, doing the running man and some new wave kind of shimmies.

My friends decided we should leave and go to another party that was supposed to be cooler. In the meantime, I had drunk enough to forget I was wearing tight, torn jeans, a plaid shirt tied at the waist and dashes of hot pink blush and blue eye shadow. We arrived at the new party, a more drug, hipster, drop-out themed party, and everyone stopped talking and stared at me. I felt self-conscious, so I worked my way further and further into the house to get away from people staring at me. In the final room, there, in the center of the kitchen, perched on the only bar stool, directly under the overhead light, sat Matthew, smoking a cigarette. My face lit up: now the night was worth the partying.

We talked and talked like people finding each other’s edges do, and we loved that in the party we were alone, laughing, enjoying each other’s jokes, while everyone else provided scenery to our little world.

I excused myself to go to the restroom, high on that flirtation buzz, and I looked in the mirror. I was wearing tight, torn jeans, a plaid shirt tied at the waist, and dashes of hot pink blush and blue eye shadow. No wonder everyone looked at me so weird! I untied my shirt and rubbed off my makeup, but, in front of this guy I knew I would date, I was humiliated again.

“Oh my god, Matthew! I was just at an ‘80’s party, I swear! I totally forgot I looked like this!”

“Yeah, I kinda wondered about the outfit.”

Instantly, distant, cool Matthew morphed into someone who accepted that I would show up to a party looking crazy weird, and still talk to me all night. He didn’t care about the hot pink blush streaks and the torn jeans, he just wanted to talk to me.

I took him back to my dorm room that night, and we sat up drinking hot tea and listening to Frank Sinatra until 4 am. When I drove him home, I gave him a sweet peck on the cheek.

We’ve been together ever since, every day. And this Valentine’s Day marks the tenth anniversary of that night of hot pink blush, hot tea, and smokin’ Sinatra.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Matthew.