Hitched

In some ways, Spike and Egon Selby can be considered old-fashioned. They like to play pinochle, they got to know each other as teammates on an office bowling team, and they're learning to play bridge. But they've got a modern side, too. For instance, they got to knocking boots on their very first date, they pass gas around each other (and everyone else) with wild abandon, and on a few occasions Egon has even agreed to wear Spike's lingerie.

Their first date was hardly a proper social engagement per Miss Manners. After drinking for hours at a party thrown by Wieden & Kennedy, where they both worked--she was a production manager, he was a graphic designer--they jumped in a cab together and then hopped in the sack.

It took weeks for their second date to take place. "I refused to call him, and he didn't call me," Spike says. "It was very awkward when I would see him at work."

Their second excursion, which Egon brokered by calling her extension and asking Spike "out for a real date," was hardly formal. "We were at the Alibi," she remembers, "and Egon farted. He was embarrassed, but I said, 'It's perfectly natural.' It was no holds barred after that. We're very gassy people."

Friend Beth Wills concurs: "They're the gassiest people I've ever met. I'm talking measuring on the Richter scale."

Spike (given name Kerry) first was nonplussed by Egon's courting. "I used to call him Mr. Charisma behind his back as a joke," she says. But her friends thought differently. "She was
definitely in denial that she was falling for him," says Wills.

Then there was the hair. "Egon had long thin blond hair that went back into a ponytail," says Wills. "She wished he'd cut it off."

When Egon visited Spike in New York, where she was temporarily relocated for work, he made the ultimate sacrifice and cut his controversial locks. "I was going to do it anyway," claims Egon. "But she likes to take credit for it."

Within a year they moved in together, and Egon, though quiet, quickly became adored among Spike's group of mostly girlfriends. They talk about how he gives hugs that never let up, and one pal remembers how he came over to her house and cut her laurel bushes in the hot sun for four hours. If he were Jewish, the word mensch would apply.

Egon made his first trip with Spike and some of her friends to the remote Nevada desert for the Burning Man festival. Spike and pals were already seasoned veterans, while Egon was a Burning Man virgin. "Egon was such a good sport," Wills recalls. "He let us do anything we wanted to him." That included suiting him up in gold short-shorts with the word "streaker" embroidered on the ass.

After a year-and-a-half engagement and a backyard wedding that featured Egon's father as the officiating minister and a mechanical farting dog in the garden, the couple returned to Burning Man in a rented RV for their honeymoon. A friend interviewed them about their love story on a radio show at Burning Man. They told their tale--without breaking that infamous wind on the air.

Want to share your love connection with the world FOR FREE? The recently hitched--gay, straight, poly, trans, animal, vegetable, mineral--should email hitched@wweek.com (send dazzling details about your strangest date, your biggest fight and your nosiest in-law) or call (503) 243-2122 ext. 250 to be considered.

WWeek 2015