The Story

We met on March 18, 2019 just before performing in a concert to benefit multiple organizations that provide resources for AIDS survivors. We were assigned a brief duet that night. Well, truly, we were assigned a few duetted bars in a group-sing version of “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen. DeReau remembers catching Tim staring deeply and longingly into his eyes while nailing the harmony parts. Tim remembers acting... At any rate, DeReau was into it and only waited a few days to ask Tim out. Tim agreed and suggested vegan pizza (which makes so much sense now). The only problem is, Tim didn’t know it was a date, so DeReau thought he was not interested.

Fast forward to the pandemic shutdown, specifically April 2020… Tim mentioned that he had an abundance of duck eggs to get rid of. DeReau, like a lot of urban America, had been suddenly cooking a lot and offered to buy some. This somehow led to an uptick in online correspondence, which led to some walks and hikes, which led to DeReau feeling brave enough to officially ask Tim out again. Tim agreed, with a healthy dose of pandemic-era reluctance. Our first actual, agreed-upon date was on June 20, 2020.

Some several weeks later, Tim introduced the idea of exclusive commitment and DeReau said, quite seriously, that he enjoyed the time we’d shared, but didn’t think he could be in a relationship with yet another Aquarius. Tim was not satisfied by this and insisted he be given a chance and not made to pay for DeReau’s history. DeReau swooned at this and agreed to give it a try.

The journey has not always been easy, but with each new challenge, we’ve learned how to better love each other through it. At some point, it felt like we had developed a language, a rhythm for caring for each other through our differences. At some point, uncertainty began to feel like curiosity instead of doubt. At some point, our individual pasts began to blur and we started to feel like home to each other.

On August 9, 2024, in a small boat on a waterfowl-filled canal in Bruges, DeReau asked Tim if he would marry him. That is, once DeReau could steal Tim’s attention away from the birds… Tim immediately said yes!