The story of our love
This piece was originally written in March of 2022, as part of our wedding website… below is my version and a link to Jordan’s version of the story of our love. Enjoy : )
Demetra’s version
It makes sense our wedding will take place online, since the internet really birthed and held so much of our relationship.
In 2016, on a bright sunny day in Pittsburgh, I was walking down the street and searched the term “sexual energy” in my podcast app.
Podcasts were newer then and not many results popped up. One that did was an interview with a man named Jordan Gray, about sexual energy in your business. It said he was a relationship coach. I can’t remember anything he said, but I must have liked it because I started following his work.
In the fall of 2017, I sat with my mouse hovered over a button to pay $500 to do a coaching session with him. It was the most money I had spent on anything like this at the time.
I couldn’t understand who this guy was who got to charge what seemed like so much money for an hour of his time, but I knew I needed to talk to him.
When I got on the call I was even more confused. He looked young, there was no fancy professional background… just him and a white wall with headphones in.
He was one of the only two people I was aware of who made money from coaching people online. I needed to know he existed for real, because that was what I wanted to do and I didn’t know if it was really possible.
After I decided he wasn’t trying to scam me, I cried the whole call.
I had never felt so seen by anybody before.
I remember it actually shook me in my relationship for quite a while, because I was struck by how I had never felt a man see me so deeply, and I wanted that. But after a while I convinced myself that it was Jordan’s job to make people feel that way, and that it didn’t really matter. But it never fully left me.
Right after our call, I quit university for my 4th and final time – fully pursuing my own business.
A year and a half went by, and I reached out to Jordan to see if he would want to be on my new podcast. I didn’t even know if he would remember who I was. He had put out a post saying he didn’t collaborate with anyone who had less than 50 episodes out.
I had zero.
He wrote back, how about next week?
I said great! And then spent the entire next week stressing about how to make a podcast and recording episodes so that this famous guy would not know that I had no idea what I was doing.
We recorded a two and a half hour, very flirty episode. Soon after that I hired Jordan to be my business coach.
The relationship I had been in began to fall apart for other reasons, and I started to feel like I had a crush on Jordan. I remember we both had a dream about each other on the same night. I told him about this, saying he was being nice to me in the dream, leaving out the parts where he was also super loving.
I released a book of poetry. On our call, Jordan told me his favorite line. I asked him why he liked it and he listed many reasons, numbered, in his very thoughtful way. And then he said, “it’s such a feminine line… someone who could write that, it makes me wonder what the rest of her internal world looks like.”
This sent me into a total spiral.
I actually had this session recorded, unbeknownst to him, and I must have played that bit over at least 100 times. Was he saying he liked me? That felt romantic. Was it romantic? Was I making it up? I felt like there was something there.
The first time I told Jordan I liked him we both decided I must just be projecting. He had all these qualities I was missing in my relationship, transference in coaching sessions was a thing, I didn’t even really know him… it seemed like my feelings probably weren’t true.
I went through a breakup. My package with Jordan ran out and I didn’t have much money left and he said he’d coach me for free. We started to stay on our calls for two hours, sometimes three.
I started to notice the way his eyes would move back and forth when he was about to speak, how he lit up when talking about his friends. He told me about his family.
He told me he had a dream about me, where he was in a house with a bunch of men and I had sent him fresh pastries in the mail, and he couldn’t get over how amazing they were.
I said it sounded like he thought I was really great.
He said, your thoughts often register as fresh pastry thoughts to me.
A week later I told him I had a crush on him again. Somehow, this ended up with us deciding I would stop asking Jordan personal questions and we would go back to our more clear-cut one-hour sessions.
Finally, I became very clear that I just liked him. And I was not projecting. And I told him this, that I was very clear.
He finally said, ok, this is the end of our professional relationship.
And then he said, “If I had to date anyone, it would very be you.”
I did not really know what this meant.
This all happened within a few weeks. It was now mid-June, 2019.
We decided to not meet in person for at least 6 months so I could have some time to be single. I wanted to be single in LA, to travel the world, not committed to anyone or anything.
But then we started talking every day. We DMed on Instagram, posting public stories that were secretly meant for each other. We did a call where I told Jordan all the things I liked about him, so he could be convinced I really did see him as a person and not just his coach self.
He gave me his phone number. We Skyped for 5 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours.
I didn’t know it then, but for this man who likes to go to bed with the sun to stay up til 4 am… it was really something.
I booked a flight for the end of July, and then moved it earlier because I couldn’t wait.
There was this connection with Jordan that I have never felt with another person before. From the first moment I heard his voice on that podcast I loved him, not romantically but just his existence in the world. This was present for both of us before it ever became romantic. The amount we believed in one another. How much love we had for one another. We were saying things like “I just love you so much as a person” before we had even met.
This was scary because we did not know how we would feel in person. We talked about it so much, saying that even if there was no energy in person we would still support each other. I remember we were so focused on the smell. What if we didn’t like the way the other smelled, we kept saying. Even worse, what if one of us felt an in-person connection but the other didn’t?
The synchronicities were so wild, at this time. We constantly saw angel numbers – 5:55, 3:33, nonstop. I went to a Billie Eilish concert in LA with my friend and thousands of people there, and in the Uber pool on the way home we just happened to be in the car with a woman from Vancouver who knew Jordan. My favorite band was Led Zeppelin, Jordan had played in a Zeppelin cover band. Things like this were happening every day, to the point where I felt like I was in the most magical relationship with life. It all felt so entirely held by something so much bigger than us.
July 15th I flew to Vancouver on a one-way ticket, not knowing if I’d stay a month or a night.
I was so nervous I was sweating. I had to stop in the airport bathroom before I saw him to wipe myself off. I left my favorite ring there, by accident, next to the sink.
When I first saw him it was strange. I thought, he is so tall. I have never seen anyone so tall. Even though I wanted to appear calm cool and collected, I was shaking and I could not even look at him directly.
He got us a cab and I looked out the window away from him. He put his hand on my thigh and I thought I was going to explode. I think we may have held hands. I was sweating again.
He became even more of a mystery when I entered his smelly apartment. Thank god it only smelled because of his roommate. We eventually went into Jordan’s bedroom that was the size of a closet. His queen bed on the floor, mattress sunken in in the middle, an old quilt that had come from his grandmother. Mismatched furniture that barely fit. Blue blackout curtains with a strange lace pattern.
Who is this man, I thought, that is so successful but this is his bedroom?
This thought continued throughout the next month – who is this man? Who is this man, who dances around his living room and sings completely unembarrassed? Who is this man who makes me food and rubs my shoulders and tells me how beautiful I am 10 times a day?
After 5 days there we had our first official date at a flamenco bar Jordan hadn’t been to since he was a teenager.
I looked at Jordan and I said, “We are in love.”
The owner, a year later, told us that many couples who have their first date there get married.
Our entire first month together was one of the most beautiful and intense things I have ever experienced. I think we cried every single day. I had never met a man who could see me or meet me equally and I immediately was confronted with all the reasons why I had never had that before – I was absolutely terrified of it. I could not bullshit him or play any sort of games at all. He saw right through me. We spent most nights sharing everything we were afraid of, everything we were feeling.
In August, I went back to LA and broke my lease and sold all my things including my beloved pickup truck.
In September, I flew back to Canada and moved into this tiny smelly apartment. I lasted 4 days until I panicked and got my own Airbnb. Was I crazy? Did I even know this man? What was I thinking? I had just moved my whole life for him? We hadn’t even dated yet!
It took just a few days in the Airbnb before I realized I was still just terrified.
Terrified of this being the real thing. Terrified of getting so close to someone I could lose.
I spent most of my time at the smelly apartment. Finally a couple months later we got our own beautiful apartment, with a bed Jordan’s feet actually fit on and a bed frame, and he agreed to getting all the flowery decor I wanted. We would live there for two years almost to the day.
A few months later the pandemic hit and what had felt like a spacious, airy apartment turned into an instant pot for our relationship.
In June of 2021 Jordan replaced the ring I had lost when I met him with a much more beautiful one by asking me to marry him.
And then we bought a house on an island out in the countryside.
And I bought myself a pickup truck.
– You can read Jordan’s version of this story on his website by clicking here.