Sending Mixed Signs

It can be easy to miss the signs that someone likes you. It’s harder to do when you’re sending them yourself. 

But that’s exactly what happened to Kim, one half of this week’s Love Letter couple. For weeks, she had been flirting with then-coworker and future wife Lianna. But because she had never dated a woman before, she didn’t even realize she was falling in love. 

“It was very obvious to me that Kim was interested,” Lianna tells Meet Cutes NYC. “But Kim was like ‘Oh my gosh, I’m getting a new best friend!’”

It wasn’t until the pair took a break from talking for a few days that Kim realized how strong her feelings for Lianna really were. And after reconnecting, the two have been going strong ever since. Here’s their story. 

How did you meet?

Lianna: We were coworkers for a long time working as sign language interpreters together. 

The first I remember meeting Kim was in the break room. There was a snack cabinet, and I had gone in there and was looking through it, and I pulled out a Rice Krispie Treat. I opened it immediately and was biting into it, and all of the sudden this very pregnant woman walks into the break room. And she sort of waddles up to the snack cabinet and opens it and literally exclaims “No more Rice Krispie treats!?” 

We weren’t friends or anything, but I was like “Do you want this half?” and offered her my half-eaten Rice Krispie treat. And she said yes and snatched it out of my hand and said thank you. I thought it was so funny. I went back and updated my Facebook status about the woman who took my half eaten Rice Krispie treat, and I thought nothing of it for years. 

Kim: I honestly don’t remember that interaction at all, but I have no doubt in my mind, it sounds very typical of me. One of my first memories of Lianna was when I had brought the little boy that I was pregnant with during the Rice Krispie situation to the office. I also have a daughter who at the time was probably four or five years old. She saw Lianna signing in her cubicle and she tried to show Lianna the one or two signs she knew while Lianna was trying to work. She signed “train” to Lianna, and Lianna just looked at her like “Okay.” 

And I remember being like what a bitch. 

Lianna: You’re not telling the story correctly! I was in a whole other relationship at the time, and I wasn’t in a great mood. I was in the middle of interpreting a sentence, and when you’re signing and you’re paying attention to the client, you really can’t multitask. 

I usually would be very excited to interact with children, but I guess it all came together and I wasn’t as effusive as I normally would have been, which I’ve made up for tenfold. 

How’d you get over that semi-negative first impression of Lianna?

Kim: You’ll have to be a pretty consistent bitch to me for me not to like you. And I think after she had that incident, we didn’t really even talk for another three years. It wasn’t because we didn’t like each other or I thought she was awful and I was holding a grudge. It was just because that was kind of how the job at the time worked. We sat in cubicles, we processed phone calls for deaf people and then we went home. 

How did you start dating?

Lianna: Kim sent me a very funny election meme on Facebook. It made me laugh. It started a friendly banter between us. We started talking about life and it sort of clicked in a way. 

We had both exited our relationships and were able to actually talk. But it’s weird to say that because it wasn’t our intention. It wasn’t something where there was a pursuit. It was more like something changed in the way that we saw each other. 

And so fast forward around Christmastime and we’re volunteering at an event for deaf children and Kim was like “Listen, I’d like to take you for dinner.”

Kim: It was the first time that we had spent any quality time together. We’d been texting back and forth, and maybe we’d see each other at work. But it’s one thing to flirt and chit chat on text, and it’s another to see if you have some sort of chemistry in person. So that was the first time that we were able to test the chemistry. 

Do you remember a moment when you knew you had chemistry?

Lianna: I think for me it was more immediate than it was for Kim. I knew what was going on right away when we started texting, whereas I think Kim at first assumed it might have been a really, really good friendship. 

I’m the first woman that Kim had ever dated, so it was very obvious to me that Kim was interested. But Kim was like “Oh my gosh, I’m getting a new best friend!” She was constantly texting me and constantly making excuses to see me. 

At one point in our text exchanges she said “Hey, I just want to make sure that I’m not sending you mixed signals and I’m not leading you on.” And I was like “you are.” And I said that I felt maybe we should cool it on the talking for a while until I got over it. That’s when I was honest with her that I had feelings for her. 

She was shocked, she said she’d thrown it out there as a joke and expected me to be like “Yes, actually that’s what this is.” And so we decided to take a break from chatting. Kim was devastated. 

Kim: The next morning I woke up just heartbroken and so upset and sad. I remember going to work and crying in the bathroom. And that’s when I was like “Okay, I can’t just let this go.” 

And probably three days later, Lianna texted me “This sucks.”

In the meantime, over those three days, I had written an email that was only ever going to stay in my drafts folder, because I just needed to get everything that was in my head out. I wrote that I had these feelings that I didn’t know what to make of. And after she texted me, I sent her the email. 

Lianna: I was glad that the feelings were returned. And that made me very happy. I think we just kind of kept texting and talking until December, and that’s when she was like “I want to take you to dinner.” 

I guess she knew she had to make up for the whole “we’re just friends” move she made. I don’t know if she was trying to friendzone me or what. 

But yeah, she came around and said that she realized her feelings for me, and she realized what this was, because she had to work through it. And the rest is history.

🤔 Poll of The Day

📊 Last Week We Asked…

• [poll] “What is the ideal amount of time to date before moving in?”

  • 23% said “< 1 year”

  • 65% said “1 - 2 years”

  • 8% said “2 - 3 years

  • 2.5% said “3 - 4 years”

  • 1.5% said “4+ years”

And one meet-cuter shared: “I think it depends on age or really where an individual is in their life. My now husband moved in 9 months into dating. We were 32 at the time and had weeded through a lot of mediocrity. Similar to Devin and Jane, we had that primal instinct. So we felt at 32, what did we have to lose other than finding out sooner rather than later if we would sink or swim? We're still swimming!”

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Interviewed and transcribed by Nicolas Vega. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.