Andy: About a month before the proposal, I came to the realization that I couldn’t see any future worth having for myself that didn’t include Shira. I had come to trust her as I trusted a part of my own brain. I had come to love her as I loved the best parts of myself. She was the only comfort I wanted when I was scared, or when the world seemed to be full of terrors. She was the best friend I wanted to share every detail of my life with. She saw wonders in me where I only saw weaknesses.
It took a while for me to see myself the way that she saw me, or for that matter in the way that I saw her. Shira was this radiant being of insight and love who for some reason found time that she WANTED to spend with me. It took a kick in the head from Spider-Man to set me down the right path. Specifically, this exchange from “Into the Spiderverse,” where an older Spider-Man counsels his teenage counterpart:
“When do I know I’m Spider-Man?”
“You won’t. Sometimes we have to do things before we feel like we’re ready for them. That’s all it is, Miles. A leap of faith.”
I remember looking over at Shira as this scene played out, tears welling up, realizing that I had been thinking about this all wrong. Shira didn’t need me to be perfect, she just needed me to love and support her. I was ready, even if I was scared. I called my parents, and had a long heart-to-heart conversation with each of them. I called Shira’s dad, who was of course overjoyed. The groundwork was laid.
Shira: It was the night before I was leaving for the Alternatives Conference, a national mental health conference that I had helped plan. I was very anxious about being gone for 10 days and felt sad that I wouldn’t see Andy for so long. After class, Andy let me know that he’d made reservations for a “farewell dinner” at Maggiano’s. At dinner, I chattered on about the conference and about my best friend’s new plan to move across the country for a job offer. It seemed like a pretty normal evening to me.
Andy: Shira was to leave town for almost two weeks in the early part of July, and I decided that was my deadline. She would leave this town engaged. So I set up a “farewell dinner” for her at a nice Italian restaurant, and when we got home, I dropped to one knee. I had a whole speech planned, or at least a string of key points and relevant in-jokes and references to previous romantic moments. I managed to get out precisely 0% of it. I stuttered, stumbled, and finally just pulled out the box and looked at her meaningfully. It didn’t matter – she said yes.
Shira: When we came home, I was still chatting about my best friend’s job offer when Andy got down on one knee and pulled a small box out of his pocket. It didn’t hit me that he was proposing, so I responded, “Oh, that’s nice, did you get me a farewell present too?”
After a few minutes, it hit me that he was proposing! I asked Andy if it was “for real” and he said it was. I didn’t hesitate to say yes!