WE GOT ENGAGED!

From the day we started dating to the day we got engaged it were only 9 months and 5 days, some may say is not that much time, younger Abi would’ve thought it was not much time. But we should go back to September 2024.

September 2024, I downloaded an app to make some new friends, I was feeling very sad and depressed so I decided I should start putting myself out there and finding new people to talk to. I tried some different apps but none seem to be comfortable for me, in the moment I needed to talk the conversation would turn very boring. I heard of an app called Hiki, for neurodivergent people, I decided to give it a go, the only downside was that it was mostly people from other countries, and almost everyone spoke English. I was not terrible at it, but I was not good either, so I gave it a try.

The first few days I made a lot of “likes” which was good, I got to talk to so many new interesting people, I didn’t feel like the conversations were boring or forced (at least not at first. Some of these I still talk to every once in a while.

The first week a guy talked to me, and the conversation turned out to be creepy, thats when I realized that is social media, and it doesn’t matter that is just for neurodivergent people, there will always be creepy people making you uncomfortable. I felt scared, I stopped using the app for a few days.

I didn’t thought about returning to the app, that situation got me very uncomfortable, but I don’t know what made me feel like I had to, so I did, after those few days I returned to the app and gave some likes to people I found their profile interesting.

I talked to some cool people, from Guatemala, Norway, USA, Australia, and then the UK. Some of the people stopped using the app, some others would use it sometimes, at that moment I was speaking with so many new people and practicing my English skills with all of them.

It was 4 AM in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, this app is not just to talk to people but also like a community, so you can do posts, I posted thst I couldn’t sleep, and asked what time was where people lived, a loooot of people replied, in one of the comments, there was this guy that had pictures of his husky dog, in the middle of an amazing place, kind of like a fairytale. There were more things on his profile but to that later, and I said oh cool, so sent him a like.

Probably the same day or maybe a few days later we started talking, the time zones were different, as I was going to sleep (very late) you were waking up to go to work, and that’s how it started.

I choose to leave the rest of the story for future posts, but that was the very beginning, and now, this is the very beginning of our engagement:

December 28, 2025. Christmas has passed, we flew to Chubut province to spend some holidays and New Year’s Eve together there. We’ve been in some places around Chubut, but I had a dream of meeting the penguins of the area, so we went to Punta Tombo.
Punta Tombo is a place where the Magellanec Penguins reproduce each year, is a place with Guanacos and other animals too, but mostly them. At this time of year we thought we would find only a few couple penguins but it was nothing like we expected it to be.

We were staying in a nice big House in Gaiman, we woke up early and started driving to the place, it was a very sunny day, but not too hot.

As we were driving (it was like a 2hs drive) the roads began to be more rocky, dusty, and desertic, but kept driving. About 1:10hs after driving we heard something so we stopped to see the tires, everything seemed fine so we kept going. A few minutes later we heard a bigger noise, I stopped the car, watched the tires and indeed, one of them got flat. I went to the side of the road but it was all rock so the tire ended up worse.

The odessey began, two people who never changed a tire before, phone had no signal, the sun was burning, but instead of stressing out, we took the emergency tire out and started to change it, when we realize, because we are in sand and rocks, the new tire doesn’t have enough space to fit, we have to make something to elevate the car higher on that side, we try with no success, until it came to my mind, if this is sand, dust and rocks, then I can move it, so I started making a hole, and you started to dig with me, until it was deep enough for the emergency tire to fit. We then adjusted it and as we were close to the place, we decided it was worth going to see the penguins after this, even with an emergency tire, no phone reception and a rocky road.

We got to the place, it was barely empty and we got the last tickets, first we went to a museum that was there, then we started walking on the main path, and just like that the first penguin approached to us, of course we let it pass, but it was magnificent.

As we keep walking we see more and more penguins, the place was really full of them, thousands, we were trying to be as quiet as we could, it was an amazing experience.
We were getting to the end of the path, at that point the penguins were diving in and out the water and I was amazed by it, i didnt got to turn around when you whispered to my ear promise me you will keep quiet. (I got some confused, and thought why wouldnt I?, and then it sank in) after realizing what you were about to do and went a bit crazy about it you took your hat off (and a big bird got my attention so I got distracted for a minute) and put on your knees to pop the question “Abi, would you marry me?” I guess the title of this entry is self explanatory of what my answer was, then you reached to my hand and showed me the ring, the sunflower ring that said “sunshine forever”, just like that, a day with up and downs, became such an important day that marks the beginning of this future together. (PS: the penguins witnessed our engagement, what an unforgettable moment)