Allow me to introduce myself…
My name is Devyn and I am not your typical gay middle-aged man. I was born and raised in Central California and from a very young age I had dreams of a life in Manhattan always followed by the fears of making that dream come true. Well, in 2007, after living in Chicago for eight years, I set my fears aside, sold my loft and decided to fulfill my dream of a life in Manhattan. I have never looked back.
Things have mostly been pretty good in life, I have a good career (IT Analyst), and plenty of friends, I am generally pretty happy… When I arrived in New York, I was fortunate enough to secure an apartment in the West Village, and after three years, I was even more fortunate to become a home owner when I bought a tiny studio in Hell’s Kitchen, where I basically planned to settle in to the single life for the long haul.
A few years later (and with a few therapy sessions thrown into the mix) I realized that my life did not need to be that of the eternally single man. I was finally ready (in my mid 40s) to find the true love I knew I always deserved.
After a few rounds of dating via the online dating world, I stumbled across a profile I had seen the previous year, but discarded because I didn’t like his screen name. In his profile, he said that his friends tell him he is an undiscovered gem.
Our first date was to be a coffee date, but it turned into a seven and a half hour date involving, coffee, a walk through Central Park, ducking into a book store to get out of the rain, dinner at a diner, a movie, then then finally a drink at a local bar. I sat in my therapists chair a few days later and uttered the following words: “I think I may have…. Although I could be wrong… But I think I may have met my future husband”. I was right.
Less than seven months later in July of 2013, I asked my now discovered gem, Yoav to marry me while on a trip to Provincetown with friends, and he happily accepted. While thinking about our future, and about when to get married, we also had the subject of where do we live come into play. Given the absurdity of Manhattan real estate, Yoav and I decided to first focus on housing, and then wait and get married in the spring of 2015.
Find out what happens next in Part II
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