In November 2016, Phoebe visited a friend at the University of Pennsylvania, where Brandon was a student. Although Phoebe walked the entire campus that weekend, they never came across each other.

Both Brandon and Phoebe traveled to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day in 2018 during their semester abroad, but they didn’t cross paths.

In late 2020, after returning to Manhattan, Phoebe matched with a boy on Hinge who suggested a double date for their first meeting. Unable to find a friend to join, the date never happened. The boy’s friend on the double date would have been Brandon. Thankfully, in this situation, they did not meet.

Until…

On January 22, 2022, Hinge suggested to Phoebe that she was “most compatible” with a boy named Brandon. While scrolling through his profile, he seemed slightly familiar. After some digging, she realized she had heard the name through multiple connections over many years. She spent way too much time deciding how to interact with his profile, ultimately liking one of his photos. Brandon was pleasantly surprised to see Phoebe’s “like” and began a riveting conversation with “Hey how was your weekend”.

After a horrible typo that Phoebe is still embarrassed about to this day and a canceled attempt at a first date because Brandon was “exposed to COVID”, they finally met at Jungle Bird for drinks on February 11. Before saying goodnight, they shared truffles from Milk Bar and scheduled a second date.