Marat and I met at our college dive bar, Our House East, during our Senior year of college at Northeastern University. It would have been your typical “we met at a bar” story, if it weren’t Halloween night and I hadn’t been dressed as Minnie Mouse with ears and a white tutu. Little did Marat know that I had been wanting to introduce myself for a while as I had seen him around campus a number of times and always thought he was cute… I just couldn’t get the courage to do it. But there was something about it being senior year, my Minnie Mouse disguise, and the fact that my best friend from high school was there with me visiting for the weekend that finally gave me the courage to walk up and say hello. After a night of dancing, karaoke and some macaroni and cheese, I knew right away that there was something about him. We soon found out that we actually lived directly across the hall from one another and couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen each other coming in and out before. We hit it off right away, but decided to take it slow because he was graduating a semester earlier than I was. It wasn’t until graduation when I invited Marat to meet my parents for the first time at a Celtics game that things became instantly more serious. After graduation, we decided to try the whole long distance thing while I went home to NYC and he stayed in Boston. We were long distance for almost 2 years, meeting at our half way point in Connecticut and visiting each other every chance we got. Finally, Marat landed a job in NYC! As a city girl, I knew I wanted to be with Marat for the rest of my life when he said that he fell in love with the city too. Soon after, we got our first apartment together in the city and have been living happily together ever since.