RIP Rizzabasil

I am really struggling knowing how to write this post!! As many of you know, I've been seeing a boy for the past year and we are engaged to be married! Which most likely marks the death of this blog. It makes me a little sad having to say goodbye to one of my cherished corners of the internet where I recorded growth, laughter, tears, and awkward moments. But I suppose I'll just have to start another blog centered around another portion of my life that needs some love.

That being said, this post is far overdue. I've gone on many good dates with my now fiancé, Joe (name has NOT been changed to keep the identity of my one and only love interest private) and it turns out, the bad dates were always funner for me to blog about than the good dates so I have not felt inspired to write much.

Where to begin?

A little over a year ago, a boy in my ward asked me out. We were already friends, as we typically attended the same ward events and had friends in common. I had a feeling he'd had a crush on me for a while, I just wasn't sure if I reciprocated so I waited for him to make a move and he did! A rarity in this economy. 

Unfortunately, he asked me out the week hurricane Milton was forecasted to hit central Florida. We'd had a previous conversation with a group of friends discussing when we were free that week to do a group activity. On October 6, 2024 he texted me and asked, "If you're still free on Wednesday and the hurricane hasn't washed us all away, would you be down for a movie or something?"

My first reaction was "A movie?!" 😬. I'm more of a let's-do-an-activity-on-our-first-date type of girl, but this boy was my friend and I was willing to cut him some slack because I know asking people out takes a lot of guts and there was a hurricane headed our way. (I had a feeling the date wouldn't happen that day anyway.) He asked about my snack preferences and I said, "Popcorn and gummy worms sound good but I'm not picky!"

The hurricane didn't wash us all away, but it did cause me to get called into work to stay overnight at the resort I worked at so we did have to reschedule. However, he took the time to buy me some gummy worms and diet coke as a snack to get me through the storm:')

Shout out to this man's patience because my family came into town almost right after the hurricane so we had to reschedule for 2+ weeks after the day he'd originally asked me out for. However, this gave him an opportunity to practice some creativity. He ended up sending me a Qualtrics survey to find out my preferences for a first date. He not only asked me about preferred activities but also what kind of music I'd like played in the car, how long I'd like the date to last, when I'd like the date to start, etc. This man had me questioning if my love language was Qualtrics surveys!! I had so much fun taking the survey and thought it was so thoughtful and showed initiative.

On October 28, 2024 we had our first date. We went mini golfing and fed some baby gators located in a pit at the mini golf course. I remember feeling very at ease with him. After all, we were friends already. 

As we started to drive away from the mini golf course, he asked if I wanted to get ice cream. I regretfully informed him that I was too tired to do so right then but we could grab some later that week if he wanted to. (He later told me that this was very encouraging and made him very excited haha.) We planned our second date for that Friday. Our first date was followed up by another survey to get my feedback on the quality of our first date as well as to get some ideas for our second date hahaha.

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Our second date did not go as smoothly. Our mutual friend Sara (name has been changed to keep the identity of my friend private) ended up in the hospital for mental health concerns the day before so we decided we wanted to drop off a care package for her. On the first half of the date, we ate sub sandwiches from Jersey Mike's and watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the cast member parking lot. For the second half of the date, we picked up our cast member friend Daniel so he could sign us into Sara's apartment complex and drop off the care package we'd put together. The vibes were a little off due to the heaviness of Sara's situation and all things leading up to it so the date was not as good as it could have been. (We agreed about this after the fact.) 

C'est la vie. You can't have good dates without bad dates I suppose.

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In between our second date (which happened on a Friday) and our third date (which was slated for the following Tuesday) there was a Sunday (duh, that's how the days of the week go.) On that Sunday, our ward had a scheduled break the fast dinner followed by a 30 min session of night church followed by a YSA devotional given by Elder Bednar. A friend of ours from church had recently hurt my feelings which caused me to be a bit weary to attend all these events. I knew that friend would be at night church and presumably the evening devotional and I did not want to face her. So, during night church I opted to sit in the foyer. Joe noticed my absence in the chapel and came to find me. He sat down on the couch next to me, talked through my fears with me, and made me giggle when he noticed there was a roach chilling in the upper corner of the foyer wall across from us. 

As it came time to watch the devotional, we moved into the chapel and sat in the back pew. The devotional proceeded and I tried to focus on Elder Bednar's message but I was having strong thoughts pass through my mind telling me to hold Joe's hand! Were those thoughts promptings? Or were they merely a reflection of my emotional state and a token of gratitude I wanted to give to Joe after he so kindly helped me work through my anxieties moments earlier in the church foyer? I do not know. But I gave weight to those thoughts. I leaned over, whispered in his ear asking if he wanted to hold hands and he said yes! We held hand for a bit but he ended up releasing my hand and putting his arm around me for the rest of the devotional. Again, during this experience I felt comfortable and at ease.

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For our third date, we'd planned to get ice cream at the Boardwalk Resort at Walt Disney World and maybe walk around a bit. To get there, we decided to park at the Riviera Resort, hop on the Skyliner (think sky tram but Disney themed), and get off at the Boardwalk Resort stop. 

When we first boarded the Skyliner, I sat on one side of the gondola while he sat on the other side, but as our gondola ascended he announced that he was going to come over and sit next to me. I can't remember what was said after that but I think it was something along the lines of him saying, "I enjoyed our time at the devotional together," and me responding with, "Yeah I was on the fence about us as a couple for a while but I think I'm all in now," and he said, "That's good," and leaned over and kissed me! My second kiss ever! At age 27. 6.5 years after my first kiss. If middle school Isabel knew that she'd had such a romantic moment on Disney property she would have died. That was her secret dream!

So yes. We kissed, we got ice cream at the Boardwalk, and we talked. We asked each other lots of questions to get to know each other, and had a mini-DTR where we decided to keep dating each other. 

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Our making it official happened at another Disney resort. I suppose that's what happens when you live near and work on Disney property, many significant moments happen at Disney whether you want them to or not. It was November 11, and I had been deployed to the Port Orleans French Quarter resort for the week. Joe had planned to come meet me after my shift so we could grab beignets before picking his mom up at the airport that night. As we sat and ate, we had a gauche conversation about what it means to be boyfriend and girlfriend and agreed that we most likely fit the criteria. Neither of us had interest in dating other people at that point and wanted to keep going on dates with one another so we left the resort that night calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend!

I also told him I loved him that night for the first time, although it was probably another week or so before we started regularly saying it to each other. After our beignets, we went to his car to talk a bit more and I told him "I love you!" and he responded "Oh I love you too!" But I felt the need to follow my statement up with "I just tell a lot of people I love them all the time like my friends and family so I felt the need to tell you too." And that was that. While this boy was not my first kiss, he was my first official boyfriend and first "I love you."

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Here we are, 12 months later. We're now engaged to be married on January 16, 2026 and looking forward to long and happy lives together. This man makes me laugh, he listens to me, he memorizes my favorite things, we have fun doing almost anything and everything together. He calms my fears, he offers to help me when I'm sick (which has been more often than not this year unfortunately. That's another story though🫩.) He fixes my belongings that are broken, he respects my likes and interests and even shares some with me. He gives the best hugs and is so patient. He's a great cook. He's nice, smart, spiritual, and cute. I love him a lot! And I don't know what I would have done in the past year without him. We make a good team and I look forward to continuing to learn and grow with him:')

There must be something in the water

 Hello. There is too much to explain let me sum up

So on October 28th I went on a first date with a boy in my ward who I was already very good friends with. We have continued to go on dates and on November 11th we became official (my first boyfriend!!! And second kiss ever!!! At age 27!!!! Crazy!!!!)

I will have to go into detail about all that later but for now, I would just like to say wtf. Look at these screenshots from various boys (and one girl on behalf of a boy lol)

Where were they when I was single? I am happily dating my boyfriend now but couldn’t these boys have come out of the woodwork when I was bemoaning my chronic singleness between the ages of 20 and 26? It would've been nice to have at least one boyfriend in between now and then ay ay ay. Still, it is flattering.

If you found you could relate to the emotions found in this post, Rizzabasil recommends listening to the following songs

• "Something in the Water" by Lawrence Spotify Apple Music YouTube

Routine Update

 Two updates

- I asked a boy out last week and my heart rate didn’t spike!! I’m so proud of my nervous system!! (The boy was wishy washy and we didn’t end up going out but c’est la vie. I’m glad I shot my shot so I could find out that he’s lame and move on)

- A boy in my ward asked me out last week for the day the hurricane was supposed to hit. The hurricane hit and we did have to reschedule😂 this date is now planned for October 29 because my next couple of weeks are going to actually be nuts. Stay tuned.

Group Date

*All names have been changed to keep the identity of my friends and potential love interests private. 

DISCLAIMER: The social outing recorded in this blog post does not meet the criteria to be qualified as a date (it was not paired off or paid for, but it was planned ahead.) That being said, the circumstances surrounding this social outing pushed me out of my comfort zone in an effort to show interest in a boy I think is cute so it's going on the blog.

Let's give you some background first.

The date is August 11. I'm attending a regional YSA conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Me and my friend Sara are in line for a lunch buffet there and we have the briefest interaction with a smiley blond kid named Will. We don't learn much about him but I at least knew I liked his vibe because he seemed kind and easygoing and had some sort of a sense of humor. Will and I exit the buffet line and as I'm waiting for Sara to finish dishing up her food I make a mental note to try and watch where he goes down to sit so that we can go sit by him, however, he's quickly lost in the crowd and Sara and I end up joining a table with 3 other boys much too young for us. 

As we're sitting eating our meal, I tell Sara that I thought Will seemed cute and nice and immediately she gets up and starts searching the dining hall for him, to no avail. Eventually, meal time ends and we all shuffle into the next room to listen to a speaker. Sara continues to search the crowd for Will as we move to the next room and eventually spots him sitting down in the middle of a row filled with girls (there were literally probably 5-7 girls on either side of him.) She was brightened by the fact that she'd located him, but discouraged by the surroundings she found him in, so we returned to our seats near the back of the room next to our friends. 

That's when, we spot Will stand up from his spot and walk out of the room. Sara, moved upon by who knows what, gets up and follows him out, where she finds him going through his luggage looking for something. I was not in the room when this happened so I have no idea what sort of conversation they had, but I know it ended with Sara getting his number for ME. Sara reports that the conversation was awkward but that he was very nice and chill about it, doing what he could to put her at ease because he could tell she felt awkward😂

The conference ends without another sight of Will. In the following days, I text him giving him my name but the conversation fizzles out as I become nervous and unsure of how to approach the situation because he lives a 3+ hour drive away from me.

Fast forward to yesterday, September 30. Sara and I are planning to make the drive down to the area where Will lives, but not to visit him. My friends Olivia and Owen are in town from Utah for a mere 24 hours for a layover and we made plans to spend the day with them! In the time leading up to September 30, Sara kept gently suggesting we make plans to see Will in person and I did nothing about it mostly because I still felt awkward and unsure about the whole situation. He did seem super nice and cool from our brief interaction back at the YSA conference but I did not know how to deal with distance obstacle in our way. I'm not great at keeping in touch with people I'm already friends who live far away, much less boys I barely know.

Nevertheless, we met up with Olivia and Owen around 11:00am and as I was eating a gluten free firehouse subs sandwich while everyone else watched me (they had all already eaten that morning) I decided to text Will asking him if he wanted to meet us all for ice cream that night. I did it for the plot (and to give me some blog material.) 

Nine hours later, we all met up with Will at an ice cream place that was entirely blue inside. Will continued to prove himself to be a kind, easygoing, and all around nice guy with a quieter sense of humor as he ate his single scoop of guava cheesecake ice cream with 4 near strangers.

His good qualities

1. Has a natural talent for putting people at ease
2. Smart!! (He's in med school)
3. Values the church

He also likes pickleball and is afraid of sharks.

In my debrief with Olivia, Owen, and Sara afterwards, we determined he is good at navigating possibly awkward situations, nice, personable, genuine, sincere, and might possibly have a sense of humor. He did ask some questions specifically to Olivia and Owen that gave us moment for pause during our debrief but on the whole we all thought he was a stand up guy.

In writing this blog post, I think the only thing I can think of that I don't like about him so far is his eyebrows.

All in all, props to me for doing something uncomfy and props to my friends for talking my anxiety down as we were going to meet up with him (my heart beat was 104 bpm.)

Moving forward, I'm still unsure of how to approach the situation. He did text me afterwards thanking me for the invite and a link to playlist of some Cody Fry songs that we'd talked about while we were all standing around eating our ice cream. I have yet to respond as I did not get home til 2am last night and have spent the majority of the day recovering from a crazy couple days full of activities and little sleep.

He's a nice guy. 

While We're Here

 Since I've posted two blog posts consecutively I thought I'd just come on here and say there has been some minor boy action happening here in Florida, just nothing worth blogging about. I feel like this blog is for the recording of dates* and while I have been receiving some attention from various boys here, a lot of them are all talk no game. THAT BEING SAID, it's more attention than I feel like I ever got in Utah so that's something. To be continued...

*Dates must meet the 3 P's criteria in order to qualify as a date and that is 1) paired off 2) planned ahead and 3) paid for

I dropped my will to be here**

*All names have been changed to keep the identity of my friends and potential love interests private. 

HELLO. So.

About a month ago I gave a ride to a kid named Kendall to FHE. It really wasn't that big of a deal because I picked him up from the Westclock bus stop which is 5 min from the church building here. I made small talk with him on the way to FHE but then didn't really interact with him during FHE. I didn't end up giving him a ride home because it wasn't on the way home for me but it was for this other girl so she took him home but he texted me afterwards and said he wanted to repay me somehow, possibly with a sweet treat. I told him he didn't need to worry about it but he was persistent!! He texted me one night asking what kind of treat I'd want and then told me he'd have it for me after work. I had to break it to him that I didn't live at Flamingo which threw a wrench in his plans. A couple weeks later he messaged me asking if I was free on Tuesday to get dinner and watch the fireworks (I was not free on Tuesday) and then finally, he messaged me yesterday asking if I worked. I said, "Yes from 10:00am-7:00pm" (I was really only scheduled from 10:00am-5:00pm but was hoping they'd let me stay til 7:00pm so I could earn some more cash.) He said, "Great wanna get ice cream at Beaches and Cream after you're off?" and feeling like I could no longer escape this kid's invitations I said yes, hoping it would get him off my back. I didn't really want to say yes because from my limited interactions with this kid I didn't really feel like I needed any one on one time with him but part of what motivated me to say yes was this blog! I told myself even if I was going on a date that I didn't want to go on, at least I could have fun writing about it.

The date was fine.

I feel like because I wasn't thrilled to go on this date in the first place, I was judging him a little harshly throughout which maybe isn't the most fair of me but c'est la vie.

Before we get into it, let me lead off with his redeeming qualities

1. Gentlemanly (paid and opened my doors for me when it wasn't too out of the way)
2. Asked me questions
3. Persistent

Work didn't end up letting me extend my shift so I ended up going home at 5:00pm which was maybe a blessing in disguise because that allowed me to actually get ready for the date rather than just changing into the t-shirt and sports shorts I had in my work backpack as an emergency change of clothes.

He was coming over from Hollywood Studios on the Skyliner to meet up at the ice cream place and I decided to park at the Riviera Resort and take the Skyliner over because I'd had trouble parking at the Beach Club Resort without a dining reservation before. We ended up running into each other at the Epcot Skyliner stop so we walked over to Beach Club from there. The time was approximately 7:45pm.

I asked him if he'd made a reservation for Beaches and Cream and he said, "No, should I have?" I explained that the past two times I'd tried to go to Beaches and Cream, it was almost impossible to get in without having a reservation beforehand but we resolved to go and try to join the walk up list anyway. 

The walk up list was full. So Plan B went into effect which was ordering ice cream from the Beaches and Cream walk up window. I got a single scoop of chocolate. He got a double scoop of chocolate. He jokingly suggested we order one of everything on the menu. I gave him a pity laugh.

After ordering our ice cream, we were standing by the pick up window and he turns to me and says, "Hey you dropped something!" I look slightly down kinda confused when he goes and says, "You dropped your smile. I just like being silly like that." I gave him another pity laugh and immediately thought to myself "Man I can't believe that just happened, but I cannot wait to tell all my friends that it did." and, "This'll make some great blog content." I was also wondering if any of the people around us heard him say that and were going to go home and recount what had just happened to their friends and family e.g. "You'll never guess what I heard this guy say to this girl at the ice cream window...." At least he has a sense of humor. I can't say we have compatible senses of humor but at least he has one!

After the kind cast member delivered us our scoops of chocolate, I took a bite or two and promptly spilled some down the front of my shirt and we ended up walking around the Epcot resort area just talking. 

See chocolate here

I asked him lots of questions (because that's what I tend to do whenever I'm getting to know someone new) and if I didn't immediately shoot him a question after he was done answering the last one there was often some prolonged lulls in the conversation til he finally thought of a question to ask me. He was asking me questions though which was good! I learned that he just scored a computer engineering internship with Disney Imagineering and he wants to stay here long term. He wants to earn $120,000/year because he feels like that'll provide for a wife and kids. He also thinks housing in Florida is cheap. He's from Vegas. We were also talking about our favorite musicals at one point and he told me one of his favorites is the Book of Mormon musical which made me go 🤨, as I do not feel like that musical pays proper respect to our shared faith.

By 8:50pm we'd made our way back to the Epcot Skyliner stop and I informed him that I was tired and would be going home at 9:00pm. He said "Alright I'll take you back to the Riviera then." So we got in the long line for the Skyliner. He was on his phone for a lot of the time we were in line.

We parted ways at the Riviera bus stop. He was thinking of heading to Magic Kingdom after leaving me so I could walk to my car. I gave him a light hug and thanked him for the time and giggled to myself on my way to my car thinking about the, "You dropped your smile" line again.

So there you have it. I did not leave the date feeling anymore inclined to spend additional time with him than I did before the date. I was hoping the date would happen and he would realize that I'm not the one for him but he messaged me tonight while I was working and asked how my Sunday has been so it seems I'm not off the hook quite yet. I've found myself wishing one of the cuter boys in my ward would start asking me out so I would have a better excuse to ask him to stop messaging me. Yipes. Wish me luck.

**Today's blog title comes from my friend Sara who after telling her the details of the, "You dropped your smile" line, told me that if she'd been on the date, she would have replied "Well I just dropped my will to be here" and left.

Another Date(?)

*All names have been changed to keep the identity of my friends and potential love interests private. 

Whaddup for real this time. The blog is back. Rizz has been resurrected. Let me give you the dish as this blog post is about 3 months overdue.

I have moved back to Florida officially as of 96 days ago. Maybe a month before I moved back I got a DM out of the blue from a friend I'd met previously in Florida (we'll call him Blake) asking what it was like working at Trader Joe's because he was considering moving to California soon and was thinking of it as a future employment option. I went off because I'm very passionate about how good of a workplace Trader Joe's is but our conversation evolved as we caught up on each others lives and blah blah blah. Anyway. I tell Blake that I'm moving back to Florida in June and he says "Oh my gosh we have to meet up!" So not even 2 days after I move back in, we set up a day to meet up. The plan was resort hopping on the Skyliner resorts uwu. I was feeling i n c r e d i b l y anxious about it partly because I did have a crush on this kid the last time I was living in Florida and partly I think because I was just going through a big life change and my anxiety spikes whenever I go through big life changes anyway. So. Anyway.

We meet up at our neutral third party location and start hopping to the various Skyliner resorts. I wanted to go to the Riviera so we went there for lunch (he paid for my lunch so we could use the CM discount... but then I venmo'd him back lol) and then he wanted to go to Art of Animation so we went there and hit up the arcade (he paid for my games) and then we tried to crash the s'mores activity put on by the recreation team but it got rained out and at that point I was pooped so I said I had to go home hehe.

Overall the vibes felt very platonic from my POV. The conversation was good but towards the end of the date(?) when I was tired and out of things to say he just went on a lot of random tangents. I did question his maturity level?? I felt like some jokes he was trying to make were like junior high level and I just didn't react to them.

His redeeming qualities

1. Good at planning fun things!!
2. Remembered things I told him
3. Has a sense of humor
4. Knows so much about Disney

I left the date(?) thinking he was not as funny as I'd originally thought he was but I still liked him... just not enough to reach out afterwards really. We haven't spent time together since or really talked at all! But we've said hi to each other every time we've seen each other at work. So that's that!

*An addendum

I do have to say too, while I did have a crush on this kid prior to the date it was one of those crushes where I had to ask myself, "Should I really have a crush on him?" There was just something about him that made me think we wouldn't actually be a good match. And I feel like getting to know him better confirmed that? Our backgrounds are really different. He's not as funny or charming as I thought. I still think he's cool and I say hi to him when I see him at the parks at work but I'm living without him just fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯