I was living in an apartment in Seattle with my roommate, Patricia, who'd been my friend since highschool.  We were enjoying single life; I was immersed in theatre while Patty worked for State Farm.  While I found myself perpetually single, Patty never seemed to be at a loss to find a date. She even supplemented with an account on Match.com, a popular dating site.  Several of the men she met were questionable to say the least, but one man stood out.  Davey, a 5'5" small-town guy who built planes for Boeing took her out and swept her right off her size 6 feet. He showered her with gifts and treated her like a princess.  I was amazed and a bit skeptical of how fast they were moving.  About a month or so into their new relationship, I had started seeing a musician I'd met in a bar.  But this guitarist proved to be more concerned with his band's growth than having a girlfriend. Disappointed and a little heartbroken, I moped around the apartment like a ghost.  Patty, meanwhile, was spending more and more time at the home of her beau, a house in Mill Creek (30 mins north of Seattle) that he shared with three roommates.

One day, noticing my depression, Patty invited me up to the house in Mill Creek for a birthday party for one of the roommates. And so, having, sadly, nothing else to do on a Saturday night, I decided to make the drive.

Spencer answered the door.  The first thing I noticed was his size.  He was huge--6'3", a foot taller than me.  He had broad shoulders, a buzz cut and a neatly trimmed beard.  With his inside-out gray hooded sweatshirt and white basketball shorts, there was a bro-like, frat-boy quality that I found oddly endearing.  He stared at me drunkenly for a moment.  I noticed a half-empty bottle of Fireball whiskey in one hand.  He blinked his sky blue eyes, swallowed and declared, matter-of-factly, "Holy shit. You're the Blerman."

I stared blankly back.

"The what?"

"The Blerman!" He repeated. "Patty told me her roommate was black and German. So you're a Blerman.  That's you."

I stepped into the house, discarded my peacoat, and proceeded to meet several of Spencer's friends and roommates, all in various stages of sobriety.  I learned that Patty and her boyfriend, Davey, had fallen asleep hours ago.  Spencer soon finished the fifth of Fireball and proceeded to pass out beneath the ping-pong table.  One of his roommates, Cody, let me fall asleep on the rec room couch.

The following morning, I wandered downstairs to the kitchen around 10.  Spencer was sitting with a cup of coffee.  He appeared bright-eyed and sober.  Smiling his charming straight-toothed smile, he offered to make me a cup of coffee.  He then proceeded to make friendly conversation.  I felt immediately drawn to him and found myself being more open than usual, jumping into the conversation with gusto, almost as though I wanted to impress him.  After I left, I knew I wanted to hang out with him more.  It wasn't long before we were seeing eachother exclusively.  I was up in Mill Creek every weekend.  By June, Davey and I had switched places--he moved into the apartment in Seattle with Patty and I moved into Davey's room in Mill Creek.  It was just me and three guys for the summer, and it was pretty awesome.