davidgagne.net

I am sure that there are still plenty of people in the world that don’t know this yet, so I have a bit of an announcement to make. I am now officially off the market.

It feels a bit awkward to write about it here, which is strange because I have used this site to talk about almost everything else that’s happened to me in the last seven years. And getting engaged is certainly a biggie. Most everyone knows that Tricia and I have been dating for about six years now.

We’ve known each other since 1989. We fell in love with each other the day we met. She was a middle-school student starring as one of the orphans in the Ormond Beach Recreation Department’s production of “Annie”. The director was my high school drama teacher and he roped me into playing the part of a judge and a laundryman when those two actors disappeared a week before the show started.

We started dating almost immediately and have, in one way or another, been together ever since. True: we drifted apart geographically because we went to different high schools, and then I went to UF and she went to UCLA; and then I went and got married and then divorced. So we haven’t exactly been dating non-stop for the last seventeen years. But we never technically “broke up”; she is my best friend and we have been inseparable since I moved to LA on September 11, 2000 (the day before her birthday).

On Monday of this week I called her mother in Florida and asked for permission to marry her daughter. She tearfully agreed. I then drove to her dad’s country club and pulled him out of his poker game to show him the ring and ask for her hand in marriage. He gave me his blessing.

On Tuesday, March 20 I asked Tricia to marry me and she said yes. I am a very happy man.