How do you communicate with him?

Skype and the occasional e-mail or Facebook message. Calling the US from Israel is expensive.

Give a random fact you know about him.

He used to grow watermelons back in El Salvador.

Isn’t that cool? For someone with a green thumb like me, it is.

Since when have you been together?

Since June 24, 2011.

How did you two meet?

One of my favorite stories to tell!

We were both working at a new restaurant in Washington, DC called Serendipity 3 (yes, like the one in the movie Serendipity). He was a bartender, I was a hostess. I didn’t usually work night shifts there, but I did on June 16, 2011. Marvin happened to be working that night as well. We had met briefly at training in May, but we didn’t really talk since he had his group and I had mine. Anyway, at some point during the evening, a customer came up to me on her way out and told me that Marvin was the best bartender she ever had. People usually didn’t comment on the service at Serendipity because it was generally lackluster, so I was a bit surprised.

When business slowed down a little bit, I got curious and looked over at the bar to see what was so great about this particular bartender. The first thing I noticed was that he was cute. I’m not saying that to be shallow, but that’s generally the first thing you can tell about someone because you see them before you get to know them. The second was that he seemed to be having fun. He did some bar tricks and you could tell that he and the customers were having a good time. He was very personable, he asked people about themselves and was always polite. He seemed like a good guy.

A bit later on in the night, he called me over to the bar. I figured it had something to do with work, so I didn’t think anything of it. But he introduced himself and seemed interested in me. He asked me how old I was; I told him I had turned 20 just the day before. A few minutes later, he gave me a dollar bill folded into a heart with a star in the middle, saying it was a birthday present. I still have it in my drawer at home.

We talked when we were on the same shifts over the next week or so and learned a little bit more about each other. One night, he gave me a note on receipt paper saying that he really liked me. I wrote a note back to him in Spanish (he’s Salvadoran and didn’t know that I spoke Spanish at the time) with my phone number. After work, he asked me if we could hang out the Sunday that I returned from my weekend in Philadelphia. I said yes, and he gave me our first kiss goodbye as I left. We had a great time on our date together and have been together ever since.

Your locations

He lives in Washington, DC. I will be living in Haifa, Israel until January 5, 2012. Then, I’m coming back to live in Washington at least until August 2013 (I don’t know where I’m going to law school after that).

Your ages.

I’m 20, he’s 28.

As a side note, my cousin got all up in my face about it when I told her he was 8 years older than me. But she’s sort of not allowed to give me crap because she’s 11.

What are both of your names?

My name is Nicole. His name is Marvin.

This is going to be a totally self-indulgent blog where I just talk about how much I love my relationship.

You have been warned.