Matt and I met the summer going into our junior year at Villanova, when we were both volunteering to help out with the new student orientation program. I still remember the butterflies I felt in my stomach when I first saw him. He had this insanely positive energy that lifted up everyone around him. We had a bunch of mutual friends at Villanova, and that fall I found myself frequently looking for excuses to bump into him. I remember one run-in particularly well: I was warming up with the other cheerleaders for our performance at the opening ceremonies for Villanova’s Special Olympics Fall Festival, a huge event that Matt was running. I saw him start walking toward me and this big, goofy smile spread across my face—but it turns out he just wanted to know if I could move our warm-up elsewhere because we were kind of in the way! I chickened out from asking Matt to one of my formals and had pretty much given up on my secret crush when I got a text from him: “Hey, this is really random, but would you want to get lunch some time?” I said that I’d love to, and we had our first date at a cafeteria on campus called Café Nova. Matt graciously paid (he still had an unlimited meal plan) and the cashier who rang us up looked from him to me and said, “He’s a keeper, I can tell.” I thought so, too.

Francesca and I first met heading into our junior year at Villanova. To be honest, our first couple of interactions were nothing to call home about...Don’t get me wrong, she immediately caught my attention and I had since kept my tabs on her, I just never entertained the idea of someone like her giving me the time the day. In hindsight I think thats why everything worked out the way it did. As someone who’s notorious for overthinking everything, for whatever reason (still trying to figure it out) I approached all things Francesca as if I was playing with house money. So much so that when a classmate of mine randomly mentioned in passing (months later) that his friend had made a comment about me, I convinced myself it was Francesca and days later she would find herself opening up her phone to a random text message inviting her to be my date to celebrate my birthday at my buddy’s house. Surely she couldn’t say no, right? Wrong. She told me she couldn’t make it because she had other plans, but ended her message saying she would love to talk more and grab some food sometime. Fast forward a couple days and we were dining on the finest college cafeteria food the world had to offer on my dime (thanks mom and dad) and I knew right then and there the game was over. I called home.