It's no secret: We've been skeptical about John Mayer and Katy Perry's relationship from the start. It didn't seem like either was ready for a serious relationship, and they proved it by breaking up twice in the past year. Well, now they're back together again. We're still not sure that Mayer, 35, can be trusted, or that Perry, 28, is over her divorce from Russell Brand. Yet when Mayer began gushing about Perry onstage this weekend, he came one step closer to winning us over. Watch the clip!
During the opening night of his Born and Raised tour in Milwaukee, Mayer told the audience how Perry helped him get through throat surgery last summer.
"I was just getting to know a girl, and started really reconsidering just how difficult everything was gonna be right as [the doctor] was putting the needle in through my neck, because I was still getting to know this girl and I wasn’t gonna be able to talk to her," said the singer.
But instead of drifting away, Katy rose to the occasion, proving she was—in John's words—"more incredible than I ever thought."
"I would whisper in her ear and she would order for me with the waiter, or I would whisper in her ear and she would tell people, 'It’s nice to meet you, he says,'" Mayer recalled. He described the conversations they had over iChat at his Montana ranch, saying, "she was so patient as to even continue to get to know me and love me while we’d... look at intermittent photos of each other that were coming through this really choked satellite Internet."
"This is a long time coming for the both of us," he concluded, "and I wanna dedicate this next song to my Katy, who is my face to call home."
Then John launched into his 2012 love song "A Face to Call Home," and the audience exploded, because omigodhesaidhername! (Katy was reportedly watching the performance from the sidelines.)
Okay, fine, we said "awww." Out loud. That was a really sweet, heartfelt song dedication. Suddenly, we have a vivid picture of how their relationship began: the bad video chat connection, the whispered conversations at restaurants, the odd experience of being a new couple who can't really speak to each other. (John couldn't talk or sing for months after his surgery.) Their glam, showy romance comes from surprisingly humble beginnings.
That makes it easier to digest this sickeningly cute July 4 photo of the couple in matching stars and stripes, which Katy posted to Instagram. Maybe Mayer will keep surprising us—and not throw this girlfriend under the bus as soon as things get tough.
Donna Kaufman is a freelance writer and iVillage contributor—find her on Twitter.
A version of this story originally appeared on iVillage.