They met at a skating rink in Athens, Georgia, where Leah was attending college and Alan lived with his family. He asked her to guess his age, and she guessed right (by adding two years to her estimate, to be nice).

 

He found her on Facebook and commented on a photo of her with paint on her cheek. He asked if she would teach him how to draw with charcoal. She knew what he was doing, and went along with it. She thought it would end there, but after their first "date" (which she still doesn't call a date), they spent the entire day together.

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The catch? He was signing up for the Marines and would be leaving in five months time. They decided to make the best of it, not knowing wether they would see each other again. Five months passed, and she saw him off for his three months of basic training. This meant no phones, no computers, just old-fashioned pen and paper. She waited three weeks, checking the mail every day, for a letter from him. And with that first letter, where he said he didn't want this to end, they became each other's forever. The rest, was history.