No Social Media Histrionics Allowed

My spouse, the mycologist and writer Ann Simpson-Stamos, or, colloquially (and easier to type), Ann Stamos, and I got married on October 6th of this year. And, naturally, we first met on social media. Specifically, on X, back in 2021 when it was still Jack Dorsey’s Twitter. Ann is a popular and much-loved social media figure – on X, she’s Ann in Bridge Lake. It goes without saying that she’s also loved by her family and friends on the non-social media plane. Yours truly, primarily known on the digital front for publishing The Renaissance Garden Guy, also boasts more than one or two friends and followers on X (The Renaissance Garden Guy) and a similar number of family and friends who might consider allowing me to physically enter their homes. In essence, we both know quite a few people, and literally only about .05% of them knew (none of them through social media channels), before we let the cat out of the bag on October 1st of this year via the October issue of The Renaissance Garden Guy Newsletter, that we were getting married five days later.

I’ll ask that you pardon what I’m certain comes off as self-important presumption when I tell you that I think there’s a pretty good chance that this development came as a surprise to a lot of our friends and loved ones in both the parallel worlds of the X social media platform and the tangible, existential realm of honest-to-goodness, flesh-and-blood, in-the-same-room, live human contact.

I think one reason our marriage was surprising to so many of our friends and loved ones was, unlike a lot of social media romances, it featured no publicized gooey preamble whatsoever to our October 1st RGG Newsletter announcement. We were never on X, staring dreamily into each other’s eyes over a platter of sashimi, chopsticks affectedly positioned in our ersatz globally savvy mitts, expressions of anticipation on our faces of the imminent consumption of an uncooked marine organism, and undoubtedly something more salacious later. Nope. None of that. (Incidentally, on the outside chance that any of you reading this happens to spot yours truly using a chopstick for anything other than hooking a wad of hair out of the shower drain, I’d appreciate a well-placed punch to the balls.) Maybe we did leak a slightly effusive post-nuptial announcement or two out on X, but we definitely never laid any noxious, photographically-augmented references to potential bodily fluid exchanges of any kind on our friends and fam ahead of October One.

Phase 2

Ann and I both think that the other main reason that so many of our friends and family were surprised by our pre and post-nuptial announcements had to do with the relative rapidity of what we like to call Phase 2 of our relationship. The line of demarcation between our respective lives of singlehood and our mutual life as a genuine couple was June 19^th of this year. There’s also a Phase 1 to this story, and you’ll get a paraphrased accounting of it shortly. But to explain this romantic entanglement’s surprising evolution, particularly its marital denouement, I need to give you the story out of order. So, the first order of business is a short recap of Phase 2:

Phase 2.1 On June 19^th of this year, during a phone call with Ann to (ostensibly) discuss her upcoming RGG piece, I grow a pair and ask her if she’s married. She concedes that she’s not.

Phase 2.2 A series of what soon become daily (often at multiple points throughout the day) phone calls ensues, and we discover that we’re perfectly suited to a mutual relationship in which not only is it highly unlikely that we’ll physically harm one another, but one in which we also are perfectly compatible in every way. The fact that we are in love with one another is established (as is the reality of my own subordinate intelligence, so, a natural intellectual hierarchy is also recognized).

Phase 2.3 The new RGG publishing and overall management paradigm is also established over the course of these phone calls: Ann becomes my new business partner and The RGG’s new co-publisher and co-owner.

Phase 2.4 I ask Ann to marry me and she accepts.

Phase 2.5 Ann arrives in Michiana Shores on October 3^rd and we get married on October 6^th.

Phase 2.6 As soon as my house in Michiana Shores sells (it’s been on the market for a fairly short spell), we’ll make our home together in, and operate The RGG (and all appurtenances) from, Bridge Lake, BC, Canada.

Phase 1

Ann and I have known each other since 2021, having corresponded via Twitter/X replies and direct messages, and through personal emails and telephone calls. She’s been an RGG interviewee and contributing writer since 2022, and our contact was pretty extensive. So why did it take so long for us to hook up the way we eventually did? You’ll get the Phase 1 part of the story (abridged, naturally) right here, including the short, misapprehension-fueled answer, which is: The whole time I’d known Ann, from 2021 when we first intersected on Twitter, right up until June 19^th of this year, I thought she was married.

She wasn’t, but I didn’t know it. Plus, there were other factors at work resulting in the mutually-effected diffidence that prevented the realization of a much earlier union. I was involved in a domestic relationship until my partner’s death in May of 2023. Until that time, although Ann and I had a great deal of mutual respect and admiration for each other, and, admittedly, definite affection and interest, we likewise maintained a mutual sense of propriety that prevented any interaction that might have extended beyond friendly professionalism. And again, throughout this time, I was completely convinced that Ann herself was either married or involved in a committed relationship.

After May of 2023, we both remained hesitant. Ann, out of respect for my loss, kept her interest in me to herself, and I, believing she was involved with someone, kept Ann in my heart and mind as an unattainable ideal and my own mouth shut.

Months passed but there was never a time when I didn’t think about Ann. Through our increasingly frequent professional contact, more and more of her true nature became evident, and I realized that she was perfect for me. I also realized how much it sucked that I’d probably never get the chance to tell her. It hurt like hell.

And Ann (I found out later) thought about me, too. After all, we’d gotten to know each other so well…

In short, I ultimately have The Renaissance Garden Guy to thank for my marriage to the remarkable Ann in Bridge Lake. Ann wrote an RGG piece that was published on June 20^th of this year. I read it, and re-read it the day before publishing it. In it, she made acutely evident to me (even more so than ever, as her written words worked on my thoughts as a sort of multiplier that accentuated and amplified everything about her that from the beginning I’d known so well) her profound qualities that inspired in me consummate admiration and respect and that caused me to love her. Her kindness, her intelligence, her warmth, her humor, her respect for all life, her sensitivity, her tenderness… these qualities I could read so clearly in her piece that, from that moment, they’ve remained forever imprinted on my mind and blazing within the chambers of my heart. At the precise moment I finished re-reading the piece for the final time, I made the decision to call Ann and ask her once and for all if her heart belonged to someone.

In the end, I found out that it did.