We met on an RSVP Cruise on February 18, 1989 ...

... while standing on the dock in New Orleans. Word spread through the line that if you didn't select your own dinner-table partners, they'd seat with you with just anyone! So I, David, turned around to the sweet young thing behind me and invited him to join my table.

I (David again!) chased Randy around the ship, having fallen in love at first site. Randy, on the other hand, was looking for Tom Selick and, as you can see, I don't fit that description. Nonetheless, I  somehow wormed my way into his heart by the end of the cruise.

Have you ever been on a cruise? On the evening before the final day, the attitude of every crew member changes from "How may I serve you?" to "Get the heck off our boat. Put your luggage in the hall by midnight and, in the morning, sit quietly in the lounge and await Customs inspection." As we sat in the lounge, waiting to be released, we both realized that we'd miss one another terribly.

We began a long distance love affair, first by phone (until my then business partner complained about the $500 monthly phone bills on the company tab) and later by flying back and forth between Chicago, where Randy lived, and Philadelphia, where I lived. By Labor Day, Randy got a transfer to Philadelphia and he moved into the tiny row-house that I had rehabbed in South Philly.

Two years after the first cruise, we went back to the same ship (a really sad old tub) and were married somewhere in international waters. And to make sure it really "took," we did it a second time on yet another cruise, some years later.

We traded-up to a townhouse in the heart of the city a few years after Randy moved from Chicago, sold it and moved to the burbs in 1996, where we continue to live happily ever after in our ever-so-typical mass-developed McMansion, which of course is better maintained and decorated than any other house in the neighborhood. (We couldn't disappoint our brothers and sisters now, could we?)

We have two dogs: Buster, affectionately known as "Bubby," is an 11 year-old Boxer/Dane combo we got through Boxer rescue. He tips the scales at 115 pounds. He's sweet, old, gentle and unflappable. Zippy, our latest rescue dog (in June 2010), is a 19-pound, two year-old Jack Russel Terrier/Staffordshire Terrier mix, smart as a whip and adorable.

On September 22, 2005, we were legally married in Montreal after a 16-year honeymoon.

Randy is a Realtor® and I'm a work-at-home consultant. Visit our Web sites at www.theGayGuys.com, www.thePRguy.com and www.ListWithRandy.com.

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