Our Story
ONDRIA'S STORY
I was always a person who loved being around people. Apparently I was quite loquacious as a child and would tend to walk off talking to people in stores and restaurants. So needless to say, my need for social interaction started young. My sister came into the world after quite the entrance almost 7 years later and 'big sister' got added to my resume and I had a person constantly available to terrorize! (Love you Alex.)
After wanting to be a marine biologist in elementary school, my focus shifted to astronomy in 8th grade and stuck through my entry into college. After a year and a half in the major at Villanova University, I realized making it into space likely wasn't going to happen and I switched to Communications. With that and being a bit of an over-joiner and participating in and planning many of our campus events, I ended up in a career as an event planner promoting NYC and have been doing that ever since.
Throughout it all people have come and gone, but I truly think the path of my life was meant to lead me to Anthony. There is a quote that I think sums it up best: "One day, someone will walk into your life and make you see why it never worked out with anyone else."
ANTHONY'S STORY
I started out as a kid who wanted to become a lawyer after dreams of being an astronaut were dashed when NASA started having engineering issues. If it weren't for my high school guidance counselor who took my outloud thoughts of art, math and science to mean engineering, I may have become an architect. He felt my skills were better suited for engineering than architecture and he was right. College honed my curiosity and justified my constant questioning. Little did I know that the real world isn't as accepting of that questioning as the altruistic college staff lead me to believe.
Succumbing to the post-graduate work that did little to quell my thirst for knowledge or my desire to be creative, I stubbed my toe into the emerging world of "the internets." From blogs to posting boards, I learned to embrace my geekdoms including Marvel, Buffy, Doctor Who and Star Wars. By day, I was a mild-mannered engineer but, by night, I would take to the web and let my creative side go. But life moves on and we grow up through various failures and successes.
It's been a long road to get here but meeting Ondria has been the highlight of my life.
OUR STORY
Our first date was to see Star Trek: Into Darkness three years ago. If you know either of us, what more is there to say? Ondria managed to get Anthony to wander over to the Trek side for a day (and then he made her sit through a week-long Star Wars marathon of all six films before seeing Episode 7) and the relationship started with no hiding our geekiness.
Our second date was the very next day and included a police stop in the West Village for a busted tail light where they proceeded to hold us for 20 minutes while they checked Anthony's record. At least it provided a built in background check!
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After clearing those hurdles, the rest was easy :o) We're both so excited for what the future holds.