Gloria and Mike met in high school computer science class in September 2003. They bonded during their activities with Math Team and Model UN, and playing MSN games while chatting on AOL Instant Messenger. Despite having mutual feelings for each other, Gloria then ghosted Mike, not wanting to date someone a whole year younger than her (something that Mike still teases Gloria about).

Mike invited Gloria to his holiday party in December 2014. After 8 years of not talking, they both discovered that they were both in NYC and both working on their Masters degrees at Columbia. They started hanging out again and found that the chemistry was still very much there even after all those years. They went on their first date in January 2015 and the rest is history.

Mike proposed to Gloria while they were on vacation in Hawaii with a beautiful sunset in the background in August 2021.