Editor's note: Lea Haravon Collins first told this story on stage at the Des Moines Storytellers Project's "Love: Stories of companionship, desire, and commitment." The Des Moines Storytellers Project is a series of storytelling events in which community members work with Register journalists to tell true, first-person stories live on stage. An edited version appears below.

I am sitting in a hot tub at a public pool with Steve. It’s his birthday. We have been dating about six months, and all of the fixings for hot fudge sundaes await us at my apartment. The year is 1995.

I turn to him and say, “I am kind of afraid to ask your opinion about same-sex marriage.” Without missing a beat, Steve turns to me and says, “I’m against it.”

I cringe inside. My heart sinks. I knew that there was a reason that I did not want to ask his question — which is exactly why I had to ask it.

We drive to my place in silence. The car idling in the street, Steve turns to me and says “Look, I know you are really upset about what I said. How about we skip the sundaes, and you can get back to me when, or if, you ever feel like it.”

Now it’s my turn to idle. As an out — and outspoken — bisexual feminist, I find his view to be antithetical to everything I believe.

How could he say this? To me? As we used to say in the '90s, love is love.

But I didn’t want to skip the sundaes. I liked Steve. A lot. And there was all that ice cream in my freezer.

I turned to him and said “Look. I am very upset about what you said. And I do need some time to think about it. But for tonight, it’s your birthday — let’s celebrate.”

After he left and I was alone with my thoughts, I asked myself: "How did I get here?"

I got here by way of the University of Iowa engineering building, where I had gone nine months earlier to interview with two male senior faculty members for the position of graduate student representative on the presidential search committee.

Convinced that I was the token lesbian, I decided to dress the part — from my Goodwill $10 baggy black dress to my long johns with holes in them, and, of course, my hiking boots.

As I stood in the hallway staring at some incomprehensible engineering poster, I heard a voice from behind me say “Lea Haravon! It’s nice to finally meet you!”

I turned around slowly, looked him up and down, and said, “which one are you?”

Without missing a beat, Steve looked at me and said, “I’m the good-looking one!” 

And he had me. And not because he was, in fact, the good-looking one — tall, skinny, bald and male was not my type — but because he was clever, funny, quick on his feet, comfortable with himself, not intimidated by me, and, most importantly, could give it as good as I could.

Yet we are all wrong for each other.

He’s 6 feet tall. I'm 4 foot 9 inches.

He’s from Indiana. I’m from New York.

He’s Catholic. I’m Jewish.

His people come from the hills of Tennessee. I am first-generation daughter of immigrants.

He’s a scientist. I’m a philosophy major.

He does calculus problems for fun. I problematize the gender binary.

He’s to the right. I’m to the left.

And most importantly, we only have one letter in common in the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator. 

And, oh yeah, he’s a man.

Now as a bisexual, I was open to dating men, but I figured that if I did it would be a granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing leftie-type. Not Steve.

We agreed on nothing — well, we did agree on one thing, which was how much we enjoyed talking to each other about all of the things that we disagreed about.

And talk we did.  We laughed, discussed, argued, shared, considered, challenged, and learned. And Steve was hands down the best listener I had ever encountered.

When we weren’t talking about our political differences, we joked about our other ones.

One time, Steve said to me “well of course you don’t want to date me: I’m a ‘dead white male!’”

Another time, I told him that I did not think that we should date because I have a height requirement for men and that he was too tall. Without missing a beat, Steve turned to me and said “You might be right about that one; I also have a height requirement for women. I really like short women ... and you’re too tall.”

We laughed. A lot. And felt very connected to each other.

During this time, I was kind of living a double life, with one foot firmly planted in the lesbian community, and the other exploring this new relationship with Steve. My friends and I agreed on everything but this. 

Their resistance to seeing me date a “dead white male” mirrored my own. I was, after all, sleeping with the enemy. I found myself unable to talk to my friends about the connection that I felt with Steve.

And strangely, I felt more accepted by Steve, who did not share my views on anything, than I did by my friends, who shared my views on everything.

I agonized about this, asking myself if I was making a mistake, selling out, or missing something. I wondered if Steve and I should continue.

Meanwhile, Steve was in the process of deciding that he wanted to marry me — something that my friends were would definitely be against.

It seemed like everyone had opinions about marriage — and none of them worked for me.

There were many break ups, and many marriage proposals, including the one where Steve showed up at my parents’ doorstep in New York in a full tux. We had broken up a few days earlier, and I had just shaved off all of my hair.

He got down on one knee, looked up into my bald face, and said, "I know you aren’t ready to answer right now, but could you please just hang onto this ring while you are thinking about it?”

In between these various marriage proposals and breakups, I visited the oracle of all things love and relationships — the Hallmark card store.

I parked myself in the wedding and anniversary aisle and scrutinized every card’s inscription. The proclamations therein included, but were not limited to “from the moment I saw you, I knew” and “with you, it was love at first everything.”

If this what marriage is, then I should definitely not do it.

Steve and I didn’t make sense, and these cards didn’t either.

In between my various trips to the Hallmark store, I went home to New York to talk to my parents.

I was sitting with my dad in my childhood bedroom, on my childhood bed, on my childhood bedspread, still oddly just as brightly colored with those 1970s flowers as it had been 20 years earlier. We talked about all of the problems that I was having with Steve — all of the debates, disagreements, and difficulties.

He said to me, “I know you. And I know that no matter who you are with, you would come to me with a list of problems. When you find happiness,” he said, “grab it.”

As he clenched his hands to demonstrate the grabbing of said happiness, I heard the arthritic crack of his fingers, and saw his wedding ring in the light.

I went to the kitchen to talk to my mom. She, the pragmatist to my Dad’s romantic, told me that the secret to a good marriage is twofold: marry late, and “chemistry,” which is kind of a weird thing to hear your mom say.

Behind her, I noticed their old corkboard, covered with thumbtacks and those small rectangular cards that accompany bouquets. These cards were from flowers that my dad had given my mom over the years for anniversaries, birthdays, and each new year.

Every card read “inca caramida,” which translates from Romanian to “another brick.”

This phrase comes from a poem that my parents liked. The line read something like “love is built, love is forged, brick-by-brick, and heart-by-heart.”

I thought about these ideas of grabbing happiness and forging love. I thought about the reality that marriage is hard, and there are going to be problems, and maybe the trick is to find someone with whom you can have those problems.

I thought back to that horrible hot tub birthday, and I wondered if, just as those Hallmark cards did not apply to me, perhaps other ideas about relationships did not apply to me either.

What if agreement is overrated and disagreement is underrated?

What if differences could strengthen a relationship?

What if people who seem all wrong for each other aren’t really?

What if love is love?

I finally accepted marriage proposal number four. Steve rented that tux again, this time proposing to me at a Romanian restaurant in Chicago in Romanian, but that’s another story.

Twenty-four years and four very independent-minded children later, the relationship still in many ways does not make sense.

Yet in many challenging, beautiful, difficult, and joyful ways, it does.

Both of these are true. My choice is to hold these two truths alongside each other as Steve and I build a life together brick-by-brick, and heart-by-heart.

ABOUT THE STORYTELLER: Lea Haravon Collins is a writer and mom of four living in Iowa City. She has a PhD but never uses it. In her free time she cleans things, makes to-do lists and whips her family into shape (or tries to). 

The Des Moines Storytellers Project strongly believes that everyone HAS a story and everyone CAN tell it. None of the storytellers who take our stage are professionals. They are your neighbors, friends or co-workers, and they are coached to tell by Register journalists. 

Want to tell your story at one of our upcoming Storytellers Project events? Read our guidelines and submit a story by clicking "Tell" at DesMoinesRegister.com/Storytellers.

Contact storytelling@dmreg.com for more information.

WATCH: Mediacom rebroadcasts stories from the most recent show on MC22 periodically; check local listings for times.

LISTEN: Check out the Des Moines Storytellers podcast, which is available on iTunes and Stitcher.

ONLINE: Videos from this and other Storytellers events can be found at DesMoinesRegister.com/Storytellers under "Watch & Listen."