Johnny & Julian: Love, laughter and how to style your hair

Where and how did you both meet? How long have you been dating?

Johnny: We were friends for a few years first. We would run into each other at Mary’s and say horrible, drunken things. I made him operate lights and sound for a couple of my plays. I assumed he hated me.

Julian: Yeah, “friends” is a bit of an overstatement. We were in a state of mutual avoidance in which we paid basically no attention to each other. I guess my prolific Facebook updates eventually won him over and he started hounding me. After turning him down countless times, I finally relented. We spent that first date rolling our eyes at everyone else at the restaurant and that’s when I know there was a real spark between us.

Johnny: So, we’ve been together a little over a year. And we already live together, in my tiny studio apartment. It’s like one of those IKEA sample rooms, but with way more furniture from IKEA.

Julian: If anybody ever tells you that two people can’t live comfortably in a 450-square-foot apartment with two cats, listen to them.

Johnny: Listen to them and then run.

Julian: Straight to IKEA.

You are both artists. Do you ever clash about having a lot in common or do you find it bolsters the relationship?

Johnny: I’m involved with theater, Julian’s focused on filmmaking, and we both write fiction. As you can imagine, this gives us a lot to talk about. We’re both constantly bouncing ideas off one another, and improvising stories together, inventing characters, being weird.

Julian: We don’t really have too much conflict about writing since our voices are so different.

What do you love about each other?

Johnny: I’ve never laughed this much with a boyfriend.

Julian: He’s really taught me a lot of new ways to style my hair.

What do you enjoy doing together?

Johnny: Honestly, we’re both so busy either working or doing art things or attending art things, that when we’re at home, we seriously zone out in front of the TV. Julian introduced me to “Buffy,” we watched the whole thing from start to finish, and it really changed the way I saw the role of punching on TV.

Julian: Johnny’s great because he likes watching me play video games which is something I only thought possible in a male/female relationship dynamic. Thank you for breaking gender norms, babe. Now shut up and watch me slay this dragon.

When/where was your first kiss?

Julian: I had just gotten out of a really crummy relationship and was in a state of self-imposed monastic celibacy. But then we went and saw Z.O.N.K.E.R.S over at Dad’s Garage on our second date and there was alcohol and you know how that goes. Still, it was very prim and proper and that was it. Our next date had a more NC-17 ending.

Johnny: On our next date, we went to our first ever Write Club show, and then had sex in my Ford Focus.

Julian: Celibacy sucks.

What else do you want to share about your relationship that is sexy, honest, ridiculous?

Johnny: The phrase “murder-suicide pact” comes up with way more regularity than I might have expected.

Julian: Our sexual encounters are frequently interrupted by puns that were too good to save until afterwards.

 

Top photo: Johnny Drago (left) and Julian Modugno have been dating for about a year and share a love of writing and puns. (by Bo Shell)