“I did feel an immediate “pull,” Daved, a psychic and medium, said about first meeting Joseph. “I remember it, but not all that well. I was drinking!” Joseph countered. It would be hard to find more diverging experiences of a first meeting, but when you know, you know; whether you’re a psychic or not! Daved had been in a relationship for 20 years, and it was the 4th year of being single since being 19. “I had my fears, but more over being single. So, when I saw Joseph it was immediate. I could see it in his eyes.” 

But, this couple’s first meeting was differently memorable for Joseph. “Daved was wearing a harness,” (a first for Daved) “and I was looking at him out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to be too obvious.” A month would go by before the two would reconnect. 

“I suddenly was thinking about Joseph and a couple days later, I ran into him at the store,” Daved described. “Daved had to feed me tidbits about meeting in the bar, because quite honestly, I couldn’t remember him! But, right away we hit it off.” 

And, from bar to store to… drive-in! Their first date was at Cascade Drive-In near their home in Chicago for the obvious combo-screening of The Emoji Movie and The Planet of the Apes. “We talked through the whole thing! There I was 43-years old and had been with someone for 20-years and not had a date like that,” Daved said. 

Following with the theme of their early encounters, Joseph was a little less eager. “I wasn’t really rushing into a relationship. But after a month of Daved being so eager, rubbed off on me. I got more excited to be in a relationship.” Joseph went on to say that it was his giggle that made Joseph later realize, “his giggle is a sound I want forever.” 

Though Daved was in from the get-go, it was when Daved took a picture of Joseph’s head in his lap. “It was the first time I had felt peace in such a long time.” 

As deliberate as the two were about being boyfriends, getting engaged was a more passive affair. “We’d pass a place we’d like and I’d say ‘we could get married here,’” Daved pointed out. For Joseph, his reality was more resolute: “I did not want to get married!” But, having not gotten married during his 20-year relationship and, like the rest of us, not having had the opportunity to do it legally, Daved followed that very first “pull.” 

“I bought the ring and held onto it for awhile,” something Daved is not good at doing, keeping a secret. But, on the winter solstice, along with his Daved’s brother, Daved and Joseph made their way to the zoo! The cover was that Daved had birthday presents for both his brother (whose birthday is Christmas Eve) and for Joseph (whose birthday is Christmas). Daved’s brother opens his gift – a box of cupcakes and a diamond dogtag. Then, Daved presented Joseph with a card. In it, it read: “Will you…” Joseph was perplexed - not to mention especially cranky that evening - and not yet “clocked” that the rest of the question was written on Daved’s shirt: “…marry me?” Once he realized what was going on, tears ran down his face. He said yes and spent the rest of the evening, boasting to people and zoo animals alike, “I got engaged!” “I was showing the elephants, the giraffes and every creature at that zoo, my ring.” And, this from the man who didn’t want to get engaged! 

A few weeks later, Joseph caught Daved referring to him as his boyfriend. Joseph corrected him by saying: “I’m your fiancé,” to which Daved responded: “you got the ring on it. I don’t!” So, on Valentine’s Day, while the two were at dinner at Seasons 52, Joseph read to Daved the reasons he loved him. “This was something he’d not really answered,” Daved said. And, the last entry on Joseph’s list was the question: “Will you mary [sic] me?!” He was so nervous he even spelt marry incorrectly. Joseph got on one knee and proposed.

Daved explained: “All men and women carry masculine and feminine energy and I felt it was important to honor that. I knew what it felt like for me to ask him to marry him and I wanted him to experience that, too.” 

Daved and Joseph are planning on getting married in 2020, enjoying for the moment what it is being engaged. When asked what they envision for their wedding, the two laughed. “He has champagne wishes and caviar dreams,” Joseph explained. But, Daved clarified, ““The love I have for him I have never felt. it is important for us to share it, and I want to do that for as many people as possible.”