The Moment Cakes left the Friend-Zone

Cakes and I met in February or March of 2012, near the start of my NYSC year. I've told the story a few times here about how we met, but the short version is - we met at church. The longer version is the pastor said we should say hello to 5 new people, and Cakes was the first person I said hello to, I think. Well, he appeared in front of me from nowhere and introduced himself.

Even though we didn't speak again for a week afterwards, I thought he was cute and sent him a text message. He called and I think we've spoken almost everyday since then. Now, I wasn't particularly looking for a boyfriend (very looooooooooong story), so we became friends. There was an attraction, yes, but I wasn't in that head space of having a boyfriend. Before I agreed to be his girlfriend much later that year, I hadn't had an official boyfriend for 6 years! Not that there were no guys in between - there were... (maybe too many) - but nobody made it to relationship status. I was determined that my next boyfriend would be my final boyfriend.

Anyways, after a couple of months of getting to know him better, hanging out, talking on the phone, he mentioned that he had a wedding a couple of hours away. He was going as a guest and also the wedding cake designer, and he asked me to come along. I wasn't busy that weekend and agreed to go with him and his friends. The mini road trip was nice, we got to the wedding, had fun and on the drive home, he sat in the backseat with me.

Something clicked in my head and I rested my head on his shoulder (or maybe chest) and in an instant, I thought to myself, "Hmm. I think I can see him as my boyfriend." Nothing extraordinary happened, but that moment was a game changer for me.

The one photo from that day.

It still took some time for all of me to get to the point where I could agree to be his girlfriend, but I can say without a doubt, that singular moment when I rested on him was the start of #BerryandCakes.

Happy Valentine's Day!