We met at work at an escape room in Newton, Massachusetts. Kat was the Lead Trainer, and she was tasked with training the new hire, Joel. They bonded over their shared groan-worthy sense of humor, and Kat was even willing to overlook his cockiness (although she complained often about it to the owner of the escape room).

Kat asked Joel to go ice skating with her in late December 2019 as a sort-of date (but not super seriously then), and Joel agreed even though he'd never been skating before. The date was scheduled for January 10, 2020 at the Frog Pond in downtown Boston... ...However, we couldn't wait that long to hang out together. After talking about their mutual love of the same video game (The Sims 4), we decided to hang out at Kat's apartment to play together. When they got bored of playing, we started talking. And kept talking. And talking. Eventually, the sun came up, and we realized that we both worked in less than 5 hours, so we decided to fall asleep and continue our conversation another day. More than 3 years later, our conversations run just as long.