How This Couple Stands The Test Of Time In The Digital Age.

A conversation with Anthony and Darryl.

Him: Anthony Howard | 34 | Patent and Trademark Lawyer

Him: Darryl Hargrove | 31 | Finance Manager

Relationship Status: Dating

Anthony and Darryl were connected by way of one of Anthony’s college friends who wanted to introduce him to a friend from his hometown. The introduction happened at a club, but undeterred by the nature of their meeting, Anthony went home and took his shot at Darryl on Facebook.

The two started dating and were together for a year before breaking up. Over the next five years, Darryl relocated to New York from the DMV area leaving his romance with Anthony behind and grew refined in metropolitan trends and customs.

When Anthony chose to move to Harlem, Darryl was living in an area of Brooklyn off of the G train that often goes untraversed by those who don’t reside in the borough. As the stars would have it,  Anthony complied to making the three train transfer trek to rekindle his love with Darryl.

Now, the two reside in Harlem with their dog, Oliver, sharing a love that’s been molded and weathered by time and distance.

Q: What does Black love mean to the Black community?

Darryl: It’s nothing like sharing your experience with somebody you love. I can go to you and talk about work, friends, and family and you get it. I don’t have to preface it with “this happened because people think like this” and you get it. When you can talk to that, it’s so much easier being with somebody.

Anthony: That representation is important because my parents have been together for 40 years almost. I look at them and I’m like I want the same thing I want to be with the same person for that long and have a beautiful family and still be together and still be happy. I see the representation in my family and that’s what I strive for.

Q: Do you guys both come from two-parent households?

Darryl: Yes, which most people can’t say and I definitely see how that filters into our relationship. We wanna come home and cook for the week. I grew up in a household where my mom was making dinner every day. Not to say that I expect there to be food every day, but it’s one of those things, I’m used to that and so when you get used to that you wanna do that as well. I want to make sure my man’s fed.

Anthony: My mom would always say [it’s four of us, she didn’t have any girls] 'I’m glad my boys are not hoes'. One of my brothers is married with a kid, the other has been in a relationship with his girlfriend for about four years, we’ve been together four years. We see our parents and we…

Anthony: And, we come from supportive families too which is unique in situations like this. Both of our sets of parents support us and love us.

Darryl: We never had to do the coming out thing. It’s rare. It’s not uncomfortable, it is what it is. My family loves him just as much as his family loves me.

Q: What is the hardest part of being a gay millennial in a relationship in today’s climate?

Darryl: I think it’s social media. With social media you have to be secure with yourself first of all. I can even say with myself when we started dating the second time I had my issues with social media and being in a relationship on social media and people would comment and I didn’t know how to handle it at first and I’m totally fine with it now.

Anthony: But be clear, you mean people commenting on my page.

Darryl: People commenting on his page, and at the time I had never dealt with it before and I kind of “clapped back” if you will. People were just being nice but I didn’t know how to respond to it at the time. I mean, granted now if they say something I might “heart” it, but it took time to get to that point for me.

Anthony: I think social media plays a big part in it. Living in New York everything moves so fast and there’s so many options and we’re both men and there’s always temptation out there, there’s always rumors out there, there’s always things that can potentially interfere with your relationship. I think it’s important to always be content in who you are and content in what you have with someone and realize what we have together is stronger than anything else out there.

Q: What are you doing to continue to build a love that lasts?

Anthony: I am pretty big on communication and saying how I feel, what I like, what I don’t like, what bothers me and we’re both Cancers, we’re both emotional Cancers, but we’re June and July.

Darryl: And I think, even to that point with us both being Cancers just knowing how to communicate. And myself I’m even working on it, being a better communicator. I think for me, the building and the planning. Now we’re thinking about where are we going next, what’s next in our relationship. We’re looking into buying a home. We’re looking into having kids and fortunately and unfortunately we have to plan the whole kid thing. And we’re looking into what our options are.

Anthony: And a wedding.

Darryl: And a wedding. And I’m a big planner so I’ll take on the brunt of it and I don’t even mind doing it.

Anthony: He thinks more long-term. He’s the planner and is thinking about the big checkboxes: wedding, house, kids. And I’m more like, today you made me mad because... or I didn’t like when this happened. I’m really in tune with what’s going on today and he’s like, but we gotta pay for this wedding. It’s a good balance, because if I was with someone like me we would kill each other.

Q: Do you think your relationship inspires others, if so, how?

Anthony: So we get that all the time on social media. I think the biggest takeaway from that is that we’re only showing the highlight reel on social. We’re showing our cute vacations, we’re showing all the good stuff and people see that and they’re like “you guys are goals”. But we’re not talking about our fights or disagreements. But I do think that we do influence others because we’ve been together for a long time, in the gay world four years is a long time. I hate to even play into the stereotype but the stereotype is that gay men struggle with monogamy and commitment and so for us to be together for four years it’s like how is this happening, what’s the secret, what’s going on? To that aspect, I will say we’re influential.

And I don’t have any friends who’ve been in a relationship as long as we have.

Darryl: We do have one friend, the one who introduced us, they just got married and they’ve been together for ten years. I don’t even look at time. We do celebrate the 13th because that’s our number when we met in September. I don’t see many of us, even in my friend circle people are struggling with trying to be with someone. I try to offer advice but I can only offer so much advice because my situation was meeting someone from my past. I can’t really speak to dating someone in New York and being in a relationship with that person.

Q: What role did age and familiarity play in you all working out?

Anthony: I think age played a part because it didn’t work the first time we dated and that was 10 years ago. Age definitely played a factor because with age comes maturity, at least that’s what they say. I think that is a huge thing. Familiarity…

Darryl: I would say yes and no, he was the same person.

Anthony: I was the same, but he was a completely different person when we met in New York. I was the same G from DC.

Q: Who do you look to for advice on your relationship?

Darryl: I actually don’t really ask [for] advice. I usually tell my mom things that’s going on, she’s like a soundboard for me and she’ll listen. But I don’t actively ask what to do. I’m not necessarily a private person but I don’t necessarily like putting things out to other people.

Anthony: He’s a private person. He doesn’t like to share, he keeps everything inside. If something’s bothering him he’s not going to talk to anyone or ask for help.

Darryl: A Cancer.

Anthony: I have an aunt she is also a Cancer. She’s like a big sister to me and she’s very close to both of us and she is a therapist so I go to her whenever I need relationship advice, life advice, anything.

Q: If you could describe love in one word what would it be and why?

Anthony: Home. I feel like that’s when we’re the most connected, when we’re cooking together or in bed watching our shows or with Oliver. We’re ordering food, drinking wine. I feel like being home together allows you to block out everything else. You can put the phone down. You can focus on each other. You can be intimate, that’s normally when you have the serious conversations.

Darryl: Stability. I’m saying stability because I have a sister who I was really close to when we were younger so for me it’s always been me and somebody so I just thought no one else could ever be that close to me. So I feel like I’ve found somebody where I feel that stability where I don’t have to worry about him going anywhere or replacing him in any way.