The Lore
First Impressions
“On our first date, Justin appeared very polite and proper - he asked a ton of questions - and he was very formal. Like a robot butler.”
— Caroline
“TEENSY.”
— Justin
Caroline and Justin met in the romantic land of online dating.
In their first messages, they discussed Caroline’s paranormal past, and Justin’s love of bubblegum pop music.
For their second date, Justin and Caroline attended The Moth —
— a live storytelling event. It was over the course of this evening that they discovered they had a shared passion: the high art of merciless cultural critique in the form of righteous rants.
This shared lifestyle would occupy nearly all of their time together over the next several years.
On their fifth date, Caroline and Justin set out on a several-hour hike through the woods of Virginia —
— an activity that would remain a favorite of the two.
Nervous and overthinking, Caroline decided the forest would be the ideal place to confront Justin about his intentions (read: nowhere to run). Moments before she could execute her interrogation, however, Justin turned to her on the trail, surprising her with a small gift and a handwritten card expressing how much he enjoyed her company.
Alas, in the quiet heart of the woods, the two found themselves in a Mexican standoff of romantic intent.
And the rest is history
From that day forward, the two were inseparable. They spent days reading in the park, backpacking, exchanging criticisms of architecture (Justin) and of interior design (Caroline), working out, refining a shared cynical sense of humor, taking ambling walks through Capitol Hill, and raising their young cat sons, Whitley Ratley Markley and Boots.
