If you know Rachel and Daniel, you'll know these two live and breathe sailing. No, not yachting or cruising, competitive sailing. Rachel and Daniel are both currently in their undergrad at Queen's University. Both of them are on Queen's Varsity Sailing and have worked on the executive as Keelboat Captain. Unsurprisingly, these two athletes both met through sailing, although there is a bit of disagreement regarding the exact date...
Although Rachel and Daniel agree on where they met, they don't agree on when. According to Daniel, they met at a sailing camp in Toronto in 2011.
Daniel: "The dates are a little contentious. We were both there at the same time in 2011, although Rachel claims not to have been aware of my existence until 2012 when we were on the race team together."
On the other hand, Rachel claims they met a year later.
Rachel: "Daniel and I met at a summer sailing camp in 2012. He claims that we met each other the year before at that camp, but I think he’s wrong…"
Daniel: "For us that was the summer after grade 11. Initially, we were the most distant of our 4-person team, because we were sailing in different boats and were both closer to our respective drivers. I think competition may have played a role in keeping us from becoming close as we were both crew and both very competitive. That, and I had (have) a hard time making friends with girls. I was also just pretty weird back then."
Rachel: "We were part of the same race team and went to school pretty close to each other, so we kept in touch. Funny enough, it sounds like we narrowly missed each other most of our lives – we actually grew up on the same street, nearly went to the same school, and started sailing across the harbour from each other."
The two hung out quite a bit before they even started dating, usually going to parties or getting coffee with the rest of their race team.
Rachel: "We used to hang out with our junior sailing team a lot, but never really alone."
According to Daniel, he started "catching feels around this time" and they began to spend more time together, just the two of them.
Rachel: "After the group plans fell through at one point, he asked if I wanted to meet up anyways and we ended up getting coffee and talking for hours."
Daniel: "I found Rachel kinda intimidating, we were from very different social groups, she was the stage manager for all these cool plays, and I’d never met anyone like her before."
Hanging out together soon became a weekly occurrence...
Rachel: "After that, we would get coffee and go for a long walk at least once a week – some of my fondest memories are walking in circles around the park and just getting to know him, and I would look forward to it all week."
As for how the two became more than friends, it seemed to be a gradual realization.
Rachel: "I think we eventually figured out it had become a 'more than just friends' thing, and he asked me out on an official date."
Daniel: "We eventually started talking about whether our meetings were 'dates' and whether we were 'dating,' and Rachel told me that in order for us to be going out, I actually had to ask her out. So, I did, and for our first real date we went to Home Depot. I consider myself to be a classic romantic."
While Daniel considers himself a "classic romantic," many would say their first official date was at a rather unconventional location... (Is Home Depot really the most underrated first date location in Kingston, ON? Perhaps.)
Rachel: "Our friends laugh at us, but I honestly wouldn’t have had it any other way. It didn’t really matter what we did because I had the most fun with him anyways."
Regarding their first impressions of each other, Daniel fondly remembers Rachel as the "green haired girl."
Daniel: "She dyed the ends of her hair green, which I found notable. I think she thought I was an asshole."
As suggested by Daniel, Rachel's initial memories of him are slightly...less than positive.
Rachel: "Well, to put it nicely, Daniel wasn’t the kindest to me at sailing camp. He would steal my sails and tell me he was better than me. It probably didn’t help that we competed against each other. After we had been dating for a while my mom told me about the time I had pointed him out to her after camp. Apparently, I said something like 'That’s him, that’s him! Asshole.' Oof."
Fortunately, they eventually got to known each other better and realized that their initial impressions may not have been entirely accurate.
Daniel: "I got to know her as a sailor and a competitor before I really knew her as a person. I have found that playing and competing with someone gives you very good insight into what they’re all about, and we spent a lot of time training against each other. I knew Rachel was a shrewd and determined competitor, and that she’d catch you if you made a slip. Getting to know her better I just thought she was the coolest person."
Rachel: "Once we started getting to know each other outside of sailing it felt like I got a whole new 'first impression' of Daniel. He was really passionate about everything he did, and put 100% of himself into it. I loved his taste in books and we seemed to like a lot of the same things."
After all this time, Rachel and Daniel have a lot of great memories of times spent together.
Daniel: "It’s too hard to narrow it down to one thing, so I’m gonna list several. I took Rachel horseback riding for Christmas, so she got to laugh at me trying to ride a horse. We’ve had some really nice dates, like going to museums in Ottawa, going to see the Kingston Symphony Orchestra, and we’ve been to some fancy restaurants in Toronto and Kingston. Sailing parties and gnarly days on the water, summer nights and winter nights, car rides and long walks, coffee and bacon in the morning, and times with each others’ families. We’ve spent so much time together and had so many good memories that I’m sure I’m missing some good ones, but these are the ones that come to mind first."
Rachel: "I have so many amazing memories of the things we’ve done. I have many memories of our race team, sailing together, petting cats, eating too much etc. One of my favourites is actually from our pre-dating walks. I remember lying in the grass in one of the fields, listening to music (maybe The Smiths or something), and talking. It’s not a very exciting memory, but looking back on it from where we are today it’s so crazy to think about how much has happened between now and then, and that we probably never thought we’d be together 6+ years from then."
When asked about what they loved most about each other, their answers were incredibly genuine and heartwarming.
Daniel: "I mean, she’s gorgeous. She’s a beautiful person, in the way she dresses, the way she carries herself, and they way she treats others. I just love watching Rachel do stuff she’s good at, whether it’s plugging in a kite on the foredeck of a 37-foot boat in big waves or finishing the details on a piece of art or knitting. She has the ability to manage a team of competitive racing sailors, and the compassion to talk to a little kid at sailing camp who needs help because they did something stupid. I really admire competence, and Rachel has that in spades, but what makes her stand out to me above all is the grace."
Rachel: "My favourite quality about Daniel is also what I think attracted me to him in the first place. He’s straightforward and honest. In all the drama and chaos of high school, Daniel was always someone I could confide in and trust. I’ve had a bit of a crazy life, but Daniel has consistently been there for me and I know he’s on my side. I love that he really is my partner and we approach everything as a team whether it’s a problem, making difficult choices, or doing something we enjoy."
When asked about what they like to do together, the pair essentially split their activities into sailing-related and not-sailing.
Daniel: "We sail together, although fun isn’t always the best descriptor. We both still race competitively, and we also coach sailing for our summer jobs, so sailing can sometimes be more fulfilling than fun per se."
Rachel: "First and foremost our favourite things to do together is probably sailing. We go sailing, we talk about sailing, we watch sailing videos and movies – I think a large reason why we work so well together is our mutual obsession with sailing."
When not on the water, Rachel and Daniel enjoy taking the time to do 'house things' together, like grocery shopping and cooking.
Daniel: "Over the years we’ve been finding things we like to do together other than play with boats."
Rachel: "We do a lot of house things that are just made more fun by doing it with someone you like."
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Daniel: "We’ve been getting into gardening, she’s very interested in succulent plants and I’ve been trying to grow a vegetable garden, so even though we have different gardening interests, we help each other with stuff and talk about it lots."
[We at Human Crossing can confirm that their vegetable garden is very admirable and their succulents are doing well (check out The Jungle or Mc Mahon's House of Flowers if you want some plant inspo for yourself!)...In fact, Rachel recently got her first spider plant.]
Rachel: "We save TV shows like The Office and The Wire to watch with only each other."
Daniel: "There are a bunch of little things we do together like cooking and shopping, we have a few shows we watch together like The Wire and The Office, and we like going for walks. We’ve recently discovered a mutual love of squirrels, so squirrel watching is something we do together."
Over the years, Daniel and Rachel say the biggest challenges they've overcome have been changing with each other and long distance, respectively.
Daniel: "I think one of the biggest challenges has been changing with each other. We went to different universities and broke up during first year, but then Rachel came to Queen’s in second year and we got back together, so we kinda had to get to know each other again and figure out what we wanted our relationship to be. Our relationship has been about getting to know both ourselves and each other as we make our way through these formative years. We’ve faced a bunch of different challenges together, and trying though they were/are, I think they ultimately brought us closer together."
Rachel: "We’ve had many challenges over the years, but one of our biggest was probably doing long-distance for a while in first year. I was at University of King’s College, and it was incredibly difficult to balance a relationship in addition to all the changes that come with university. We actually ended up breaking up and losing touch for a while, and it was horrible losing my best friend. We reconnected when I transferred to Queen’s and now here we are! As sad as it was, I don’t regret it. It gave us time to figure ourselves out and give each other the very best of ourselves."
Now that they are both happily living together in Kingston, Daniel reveals that Rachel is quite the avid flannel-thief.
Daniel: "Rachel steals my clothing so often, that I’ve frequently come home to find her in an outfit that is made up entirely of my clothes. I’ll periodically find t-shirts and other articles of my clothing in her closet or her drawers, including a sweater I hadn’t seen in months. People think that some of my flannel shirts are her flannel shirts because she wears them so often."
While reminiscing, Rachel shared a memory of a time that she tried to surprise Daniel with a home-cooked meal for Valentine's Day.
Rachel: "Well, Daniel is an excellent cook and loves cooking, so for Valentines Day one year I decided to make him a romantic home-cooked dinner. I don’t really cook, but for some reason I thought I could make pumpkin gnocchi from scratch (go big or go home am I right?) and it. was. terrible. I spent hours making what turned out to be some sort of chewy goop and he arrived to see a messy kitchen, no food, and a crying girlfriend. We ended up ordering poutine and eating it on the couch – so romantic."
Regarding their advice for our Human Crossing readers about relationships, Daniel and Rachel both have some wise words to share.
Daniel: "Two things: #1: Listen to each other. #2: Understand that relationships take work. When you’re first getting into a relationship with someone the excitement and momentum can carry you through a couple months, but eventually you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that both you and your partner are imperfect people and you’ll have to put in the time to make it worthwhile for each other. To some degree, it helps to think about it as a professional relationship, there are reasonable expectations about what you are each bringing to the table and you’ve got to find the right balance and compromise for it all to work. Oh yeah, and have fun."
Rachel: "It may sound cliché, but relationships are not easy, and they take lots of work. It’s not a fairy tale where you wait and everything just falls into place. You have to put it into place! Put effort into making time for each other and finding hobbies that you can do together. Also, it’ll probably never be perfect (see gnocchi incident) so laugh it off and enjoy the experience anyways."
- Love, Human Crossing