"How did we meet?" Ciarán: "On our phones." Emily: "It was supposed to blizzard, and I was ready to late-cancel a date with this guy who had a very cute running picture on his Bumble profile—for the record this was NOT the Fifth Ave Mile win picture—but the spot he picked to meet was about two blocks from my house so I really didn’t have much of an excuse. Plus, he was cute, except for the Birkenstocks in another picture, but I was trying to be less judge-y of men’s footwear. I showed up late; he was already in the corner booth of Weather Up. Fancy choice for a first date, I thought. He was sitting low in his seat, wearing a white long-sleeve Henley and jeans (yes, I remember what he was wearing because I’m pretty sure in retrospect it was love at first date). We drank cocktails and talked for two, maybe three hours. He looked past me when he talked and I thought he wasn’t that interested. He told some joke about Meryl Streep that I can’t remember and I’m pretty sure I didn’t laugh. A Cure song came on and we both said at the same time we liked the Cure. We talked about a mutual love of Gold Star — a beer bar in the neighborhood—and I thought, Finally, an IPA and a sandwich! We made our way in the freezing rain and slight hail the almost-mile-walk to Gold Star. Once there, he ate his sandwich in about 30 seconds, and then, instead of looking past me as we talked, stared intently at my sandwich and accompanying corn nuts. I finished my sandwich but was worried the crunching of the corn nuts was too much for a first date. He looked a bit distraught as the bartender cleared away the plate with the corn nuts intact. We decided to keep chatting and walked back to Vanderbilt, popping into Soda Bar—the diviest of dives that sadly was a COVID casualty. Next, we headed up to BierWax, where the bartender gave us free beer for being out in the now-full-on blizzard. We were the only patrons. I’m pretty sure this was the first time all night that we talked about running. Sure, I’d results-stalked him before meeting him and knew that he had at least one Fifth Ave Mile win—if only I’d known about the second win this whole thing might have gone a lot faster. The bartender offered us one of the umbrellas left behind from the night and Ciaran gallantly held it over my head as we walked towards my apartment eight hours after we first met. Inside my vestibule we said goodnight. He asked if I liked Christian Bale and honestly I can’t recall any Christian Bale movies but I definitely said yes, and we made plans to see his new movie Vice. I took a good look at him as we said goodbye. It was pouring even harder and he was wearing a threadbare (it actually looked like the definition of threadbare) peacoat. His cheekbones seemed more pronounced than when we’d met, almost a full day earlier. And he looked into my eyes for maybe the first time all night. I leaned up and kissed him, turned around, and walked to my elevator."