Their mutual friend Allison gave Clare's number to Aaron on December 27th, 2017. They texted back and forth for a few weeks. She stalked his Instagram and decided she might not like him. But he offered to drive an hour and forty-five minutes to meet her and that impressed her, so they agreed to meet up at the Caribou in Marshall. Their first date was January 27th, 2018 and lasted eight hours, during which they: talked and held hands for the first time in the Caribou, got Chinese food, went ice skating, and had their first kiss when they said goodbye in the snow. On February 11th, 2018, Aaron asked Clare to be his girlfriend. She said yes.

They were coming back from a long weekend visiting Aaron's high school friends in the cities and Clare's grandparents in Rochester. Aaron's car had died earlier the previous week so Clare still needed to drive him back to Morris. Clare was tired and a little crabby but Aaron insisted that they stop at her apartment for a little while. He told Clare that he had an idea for her second for the day (Clare uses an app that creates a video out of a one-second video clip for each day of the month). He set up his phone to record and told Clare he was going to play a song for them to slow-dance to and she could pick whatever second she wanted from that. Clare realized he was going to propose to her and freaked out a little bit on the inside. Clare started the song Never Stop by Safetysuit on her phone and they held each other close and danced. At the end of the song, Aaron told Clare how wonderful the last year with her had been, and in spite of all her doubts and fears and anxieties, (getting down on one knee) would she marry him? Clare said yes.