Stanley: We met in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Life in Virginia was quiet. The streets were closed—but Target was open. One fateful day I was at Target shopping for household items. As I reached for an item, I felt the eyes of this then-stranger/my future wife as she stared at me from the end of the aisle.
Anna: We were not in th—
S: She is right, we were one aisle over. I could sense this stranger approaching me so I turned to face her. She shamelessly shoved her phone into my face and asked for my number. I had no option but to give it her. You all know Anna—she is bold.
A: That is not true at all.
S: Right, so I actually asked for her number. We were both browsing the same section for quite a while so—
A: Stanley loves telling his Target jokes. We met in 2020 via Hinge.
At the height the pandemic, law school lectures and late-night study sessions, a simple swipe on a dating app led to our serendipitous connection. We did not know this at the time, but we could have met in 2017, when we lived just a few blocks away from each other in New York City. We shared the same neighborhood and commutes, yet it wasn't until we separately moved back to northern Virginia that our paths officially crossed.
On our first date, we knew that we had a special connection. We shut down the restaurant and the rest is history.