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We both lived in the Bay area for about a year before meeting,
and even had some friends in common, but we finally ended up at the same
House of Toast party on October 8, 1999. Lenore arrived there after
attending a theatre play, and Nikita had gone to a Lamb concert
earlier that day (the poster from the concert that had hung on his room wall
since then helped us to remember the day of our meeting).
After meeting Lenore, Nikita
suggested that she attend a couchwarming party that he was having
with his roommate, Kevin. Lenore was unconvinced, and so Nikita threw
in a perk: free valet parking. This pushed it over the edge
and Lenore promised she would come. At the last minute, though,
Lenore decided to take a "nap" at home before the party, and completely
slept through it.
Over the next few weeks, we managed to see each other
a few times and finally, Nikita decided to ask Lenore out. The conversation
went like this:
Nikita: Can I buy you dinner?
Lenore: Why?
[click]
At that point, the cell phone connection had dropped. Undaunted, Nikita
called back; Lenore was very
impressed with Nikita's persistence and courage, so she agreed to have dinner with him.
 For
their first dinner date on October 30, Nikita had planned to take her to an Italian place, but
he didn't make reservations and the place was surprisingly busy. Rather than
wait half an hour, he asked Lenore how she felt about Thai food. Turns out
she'd never had it before, but she figured she'd give it a try. So Nikita
took her down the street to
Thai Delight, on Virginia & Shattuck in downtown Berkeley. Thai Delight
was already Nikita's favourite Thai place in Berkeley; it would soon become
Lenore's favourite, too. Later that evening, they went to Alchemy to dance
with friends.
It was a beautiful first date, and both of us had a good time, but
neither was sure of the other's romantic intentions. But we continued to see
each other nevertheless, and our second date ended up being a random
spontaneous trip to Los Angeles. We first kissed at the end of the trip
and slowly tumbled into a relationship over the next month or so.
Finally, by mid-December our friends had realized that we were dating,
even though we had not previously admitted this was the case. So
we decided to officially become a couple on December 14, 1999, and we celebrate
that date as our dating anniversary.
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