I married the love of my life.
My best friend.
My favorite plot twist.

Ours is not the grand, cinematic type of love story people expect when they hear about falling in love. It didn’t start with fireworks or confessions or reckless spontaneity. Instead, it began with spreadsheets, project engagements, and shared work calls — the universe quietly doing its job in the background.

We were teammates before anything else: he was dependable, trustworthy, steady. In 2022, when he was promoted to the same level as me, everything clicked in a way I couldn’t fully articulate. What people didn’t know was that it felt as if the universe had been preparing him for me long before either of us were ready.

Looking back, the signs were subtle, almost logistical in nature — but beautifully so.

When our team needed a resident Statistician for the DATOS Project, my officemates asked whom I preferred between the candidates. Without overthinking, I chose him. I just felt that I wouldn’t vibe with the other contender, and somehow that instinct made sense. It was a small decision that unknowingly set the course of our story.

Then, as years passed and teammates left, he remained. At a time when there were still no mutual feelings between us, he became the strongest candidate for a senior role. Again, the universe moved a little closer.

It was during an Information, Education, and Communication campaign in Ilocos that the shift happened. Not with dramatic confessions or grand gestures, but in quieter in-betweens — van rides, long conversations, shared tasks, and that comfortable silence only teammates-turned-friends can have.

Somewhere between fieldwork and side trip in the shores of Pagudpud, it finally clicked:

This wasn’t just teamwork. This was something different, something gentle, something rooted.

From there, the universe stopped whispering and started rearranging everything in our favor.

He is My Favorite Plot Twist

If you ask me now what I love most about our story, it’s that nothing about it felt forced. It didn’t rush. It didn’t impose. It unfolded naturally — at work, in public, in motion — long before either of us could name what it was.

I married the person the universe sent in through the backdoor: as a colleague, then a teammate, then a friend, then a partner. I married the one who stayed consistently when people left, the one who effortlessly showed up, the one who was always dependable long before he became someone I loved.

I married my favorite plot twist.
And I’m so glad the universe conspired the way it did.