Jake and Haley met at a Cornell mixer at a conference in Washington, D.C.. Haley was starting her second year of a Masters program in Horticulture at Cornell, and Jake was about to start his first year of a PhD program in the same department. When classes started a month later, the two found themselves spending a lot of time together through the activities of the Graduate Society for Horticulture. Jake quickly joined an intramural soccer team Haley had put together, and they both went to grad student trivia on Tuesdays. They shared one class together, and by coincidence, were assigned to be partners for a fairly work-intensive semester-long project.

Between soccer practice, trivia, grad student apple-picking, and working on their project, it was obvious within two weeks that there was something between Haley and Jake, but Haley just couldn't seem to drop enough hints to get Jake to ask her out (he later admitted he was too scared). Haley ended up finagling a trip to fix Jake's computer into a date between the two of them, though neither was entirely sure if the other considered it a date before-hand. They both showed up in jeans and black T-shirts with 'clean' hair and casual-nice shoes. Safe I-dont-know-if-this-is-a-date-but-I-want-to-look-appealing clothes. They ended up talking for 6 hours straight, driving to Syracuse, wandering the mall, and eating dinner at World of Beer before driving back to Ithaca. A week later, the two decided they were officially dating.

They have hardly spent a day apart since.