Michael wasted no time setting up their first date at a nearly empty bar on the Lower East Side, and thankfully, neither of them were disappointed by the offline version. Conversation had no real beginning or end, and there was a strange feeling that they were more like old friends than two people trying to impress each other on a first date. By the end of the night, they discovered they lived just one train stop apart—a small coincidence that would become much more significant a few weeks later.

By their third or fourth date, the pandemic had reached New York, and the city was beginning to shut down around them. Suddenly, a very new relationship required a very serious “we doing this?” conversation. They decided they were. What followed was part courtship, part apocalyptic romance: speed-walking to each other’s apartments before the NYC curfew, sanitizing groceries together, finding obscure films to watch, exchanging their favorite Wayne lyrics and slowly discovering how naturally their lives fit together.