When Platty Met Otter: She Said

Shawn and I met on May 16th, 2006 at Golden Gate Park's Polo Fields.

I had just moved to San Francisco in April and had heard about a local gathering of fixed-gear bicycle enthusiasts meeting on a regular basis at the PF's on late Tuesday afternoons. I headed over there with a friend of mine and we rested our bicycles along the fence. He accidently bumped into Shawn's Nagasawa as he was parking his own bike, and Shawn said coldly, "Watch it."

I thought to myself, "Geez, what an uptight jerk!" and avoided him for the rest of the afternoon as you can see here. (I'm sitting to the far right, Shawn's several feet away in his fancy kit).


The next time I saw him was when he was track standing in the Panhandle while waiting for our friend Dennis to go on a ride in Marin. He was wearing all white - matchy-matchy style - to coordinate with his Nagasawa. I thought to myself, "Oh, there's that asshole - but he's awfully cute!"

Given the fact that San Francisco is a small town - especially for cyclists - we kept bumping into each other on group rides and other events and came to realize that our first impressions were a bit inaccurate. A little over a month later, we were organizing our own rides together with friends (you can see my shadow in the corner):

And to Fairfax in Marin:


Shawn also introduced me Montano Velo, my favorite bike shop in the whole world. It's run by some of my now best friends - Jason and Stevie - who helped me to build my first fixed gear bike, the Baby Whip. Through J & S, I met Jason Grove who built me a road bike and my Broakland.

With all of these bikes, that naturally led to more riding, more friendships and more fun on two wheels. Shawn and I became closer friends, partying together, racing, nerding out at bike events, eating tasty food, and counseling each other through relationship woes and other problems life presented to us.

In 2008, Shawn officially recruited me for Montano Velo's Track team for racing at Hellyer Velodrome, and we started training together at the Polo Fields on a regular basis.

During this time, I had a dream that we were smooching but that his beard kept appearing and disappearing. I asked several friends about the meaning of this dream, and the consensus was that I was either 1) harboring deep feelings for Shawn yet wasn't ready to face them 2) just having another bizarro dream per usual 3) we shouldn't date because we were too close like "brother and sister". One friend even exclaimed, "Ewwwwww!" when I told him about my dream as he was so horrified at the prospect of us becoming a couple.

But soon after that, I read this Vows column in the New York Times about two best friends falling in love after 8 years' of friendship. (I've been reading Vows for about that long!) I think she summed up my emotions best with this sentiment: “I found myself attracted to my best friend. I was surprised and grossed out at the same time.” Yet I felt a kinship with this this couple, and it nudged me closer to perhaps revealing my growing feelings for Shawn.

One night, after training and rushing to see a film I had passes for, we relaxed over dinner at a local Japanese noodle house. Our conversation turned to love; we were both lamenting the fact that we were still single and wondered if we'd ever find a life-long partner. As we talked about what we were looking for in a relationship, I had a small epiphany of sorts about Shawn, rather like his expression in this photo about his noodles:

I realized that we had so much in common and got along amazingly well. Could it be...?

I was on the verge of saying something about how I felt the night we hung out together at Alamo Square, a lovely park right near his old place in San Francisco.


It was a warm spring evening, and we were camped out on a blanket talking under the stars. But I was way too nervous to say anything, even with the help of the tequila we were drinking!

Several weeks later, upon hearing he was about to go on a date with another bike chick, I decided to confess my feelings for him. Luckily enough, he admitted to me that he had been feeling the same way for quite some time, but didn't know how to bring up the subject. After we got over our initial shock and surprise, we had our first date on May 22nd, 2008, 2 years and 6 days after our first meeting. And thus:

It still amazes me that we were able to transcend our first cranky encounter to becoming best friends and then engaged. It's a wonderful thing to fall in love with a best friend because so much of the foundation has been put in place. I never would have predicted it, and I certainly believe in serendipity. I'm a very lucky gal.