Hey, Akil here to give you my (long) version of our story. In 2022 I decided to move to New York City. There wasn’t a real reason to be honest. Part of it was that I’d been in Texas so long I felt I needed a change of pace. So when a friend of mine, Kris, called me one day and said, “Hey, I know you’ve been thinking of moving to NYC. I’ll be attending Columbia in the fall, do you want to move there with me?” I took it as a sign from the universe. The good thing about NYC is it’s full of transplants like me, so people are generally very social and welcoming to newcomers. It turned out that Mir was also new to the city - we’d actually arrived about a month apart. She joined a mutual friend group through another friend whom she knew from before. One of the things our friend group does a lot is go to dinner at restaurants all over town. My first time seeing Mir was at one of these group dinners at Grand Central Oyster Bar. Till date, it’s still by far the worst meal I’ve had in the city, 0/10, do not recommend. But it still gets to be special since it’s the first place I saw Mir. She walked in with a friend so I thought she was taken. It wasn’t till our next hang out, at a board game/video game cafe called The OS, that I actually talked to her, and realized she was single. Over time, our friend group would often do things together, whether it was trying different restaurants, exploring new parts of town, or going to parks or concerts. And through that time Mir and I became very close. That friendship is still the foundation of our relationship today. As I got to know Mir I came to see that she is a kind and genuine person. She also likes to be silly, which is good because I am silly. And from then till now, whenever I’m with her, I’m always having a good time. So after being friends for 6 months I developed a crush on her and asked her out. I was pretty certain she was the one about 2 weeks into dating. Since then, we’ve gone on trips all around the world, explored all of NYC, and spent almost every day with each other. Through all of that time we’ve spent together, I’ve only become more certain that she’s my perfect match. So on October 10, 2024 in Woodstock, Vermont I asked her the big question and we decided to spend the rest of our lives together. -- Hey, Miriam here to give you my (short) version of our story. I'll talk about the day we "officially" met at OS, which is a popular gaming lounge in NYC. The first thing we did was play the video game, Overcooked, together. If you're not familiar, Overcooked is a fun but incredibly frustrating virtual team cooking game that will make or break relationships. Out of the whole group, Akil was probably the only competent player as the rest of us didn't know how to play. However, instead of getting annoyed at us or giving up, Akil very patiently and articulately taught us how to play and improve so that we actually ended up doing pretty well across several rounds. During this time, I thought to myself, "Wow, this guy is so nice and patient, and he's so good at teaching. I think he would make a good husband to someone one day." Funny enough, the stars aligned, and he's going to be my husband. :)