After moving back to the city, I was looking for a social group to join and ended up finding JKURU, a Japanese language exchange group. I ended up spending a lot of time with the group and most Friday nights were spent “practicing Japanese” which usually just meant chilling with the homies. The group was in constant flux with new arrivals to the city and people departing for Japan, or elsewhere so I never paid too much attention to the members outside of my core group of friends. One Friday night, my friend Ed mentioned that there was a Haitian girl who had started attending recently. I thought back and remembered seeing a cute, new black girl but I hadn’t interacted with her much. Ed heavily suggested that I should talk to her so that I would shut up about “those damn dating apps.” Over the next few weeks, I made sure to organize the group so that we were also in the same breakout group and decided “she seems cool”.

It was a Friday, and I wanted to let loose after work. I decided to go to the restaurant that everyone from the JKURU Japanese meet-up would go to. On that day, Michael had not arrived yet, so I took a seat with my friends who had come earlier. Then finally Michael arrived. We sat together and we all started chatting. Then one of his other friends asked us about rings and weddings and I turn to Michael and joked "You better propose soon". Michael said “Sure, how about now” and pulled out a beautiful ring. I was so ecstatic! I have been happy to wear it ever since.