The Start of Something Good
ge arria m & lo v e
Six committed couples look back on their first dates B Y SEVEN D AYS StAff
W
ho says people don’t date anymore? Sure, the formal dinner date has gone the way of the supper club, and couples today are more likely to “hang out” (and sometimes hook up) before they start to think of themselves as “dating.” But ask any long-term pair about their first date, and stories of meet cutes and the resulting rendezvous come pouring out. Whether they enjoyed a traditional dinnerand-a-show or a talk fest over fast food, these couples knew early on that something was clicking. Their stories could renew your faith in the dating game.
34 FEATURE
SEVEN DAYS
02.05.14-02.12.14
SEVENDAYSVt.com
Natalie Miller and Nathan Hartswick
Nathan Hartswick and Natalie Miller know when they got married — in September 2011, on the same day they launched a successful crowdfunding campaign for their business, Burlington’s Spark Arts. They know when Hartswick proposed, because he “spent six months planning an elaborate proposal weekend,” says the actorcomedian. And they know they probably met during their Lyndonville school days, even though they don’t remember it, because one day Hartswick discovered Miller’s “fifth-grade chicken-scratch handwriting” in his yearbook. But their first date? It’s hard to put a date to it. Back when Miller signed Hartswick’s yearbook, the seven years between them were a gulf. Years later, when Miller was in her early twenties, she returned to the NEK from trying to kickstart a performing career in New York City and starred in a production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change put on by her high school teacher. That happened to be Hartswick’s mom, who enlisted him to costar. At the time, “I was in another relationship,” says Miller. “So it wasn’t really on my radar,” Hartswick goes on. “I thought she was cute and fun to be around. We just sort of developed this friendship.” They didn’t start “dating” until both the musical and the other relationship had ended. So when was this first date, exactly? One day, driving from her home in Lyndonville to his in Burlington, the pair stopped at Rainbow Sweets in Marshfield. “That’s always an adventure,” Miller says. “And I remember I had chocolate cake and a Greek salad at the same time.” “The cake is, like, this big,” says Hartswick, demonstrating. Bakery owner Bill Tecosky — well known locally for his gift of gab — chatted them up. “We told him where we were from,” Miller recalls, “and he made some joke and started making an elaborate story up about how we were having a tryst and meeting in the middle.”
Natalie Miller and Nathan
Hartswick
They weren’t really breaking any taboos, but because Miller had just recently broken up with her boyfriend, “it felt a little bit like that,” Hartswick says. “He [Tecosky] basically created a backstory on the spot for us. It was hilarious.” “I was so uncomfortable being there,” says Miller, who calls herself “wound up super-tight” in those days. That soon changed, as the pair found out how well they got along. Hartswick remembers that he’d sworn off dating women in their early twenties — “too much drama.” With Miller, however, “It so quickly became apparent that she was a down-to-earth person. It just felt easy.” “We’re still like that. We just talk the whole time about everything,” Miller says. Once she moved to Burlington, “we hung out, like, every day, and that’s kind of never stopped.” Today the two performers appear together at their classes, onstage with their improv troupe, even in Vermont Health Connect ad spots. Since that day at Rainbow Sweets when their relationship was still undefined, Hartswick says, “You’ve become a lot more secure in yourself.” Miller chuckles. “You think? mAR Go t H AR R IS o N
Kristin and Jacob Albee
“I don’t even remember it feeling cold,” Kristin Albee says of her first date in 2006 with Jacob Albee, now her husband. That’s even though it took place atop Mt. Philo. In January. On a sled. Fueled and warmed by whiskey-spiked hot chocolate, the couple capped off their first rendezvous by zipping down the central road at Mt. Philo State Park on a sled they’d hauled to the summit. “It was terrifying,” says Kristin with a smile. Jacob, a native Vermonter, jokes that he was less scared than his “flatlander” date, a Pennsylvania native. They agree, though, that the occasion was unique and memorable — so much so that they got engaged at the same spot, and have brought their young son, Axel, there on more than one occasion. Before sledding down from the peak, the pair sat there talking, watching peregrine falcons in flight and getting to know each other. “It was very easy and honest and fun,” says Jacob. “I don’t feel like either one of us had any particular agenda or put on any sort of mask.” The pair had met through Jacob’s jewelry making business after Kristin’s mother bought her one of his rings for