The year was 1996. Spice Girls and Hanson ruled the airwaves. It was typical start-of-fall weather in Buffalo, NY and the City Honors annual Allegheny camping trip was well underway. But this was no ordinary camping excursion. Although they didn't know it at the time, this week of Tang and trail mix would be the start of something special for Joe and Tina.

Tina had just begun her first year as a freshman at City Honors while Joe was already a super sophisticated sophomore. The two of them met somewhat randomly outside of the cabins where they talked for what seemed like forever (maybe 20 minutes). Tina told him about her favorite band "311" while Joe lied and agreed that they were "pretty cool."

Unfortunately, they didn't have any classes together, were involved in separate after-school activities, and shared none of the same friends. So, their entire relationship was pretty much relegated to saying "hi" if they passed each other in the hallway. But the thread of fate would keep them loosely connected.

Fast forward to the early 2000's. Mark Zuckerberg and some other guy had invented an obscure social networking site called "Facebook." To this day, it remains unclear who added whom first, but at some point, they became official Facebook "friends."

Like many friendships on Facebook, they heavily relied on automatic birthday notifications to keep their friendship fresh. They would often use this opportunity to catch up on each other's lives. Joe would send Tina pictures from Duke University (home Tina's favorite basketball team) and she would tell Joe all about the crazy drama that would go down during her esthetician classes.

Finally, after 25 years, in 2022... the stars aligned. Tina reached out to wish Joe another happy birthday, but this time the conversation didn't end there. They talked more the next day, and the next, and the next, until they made plans to watch Duke play in the Final Four - against UNC - at a little bar called MoorPat. And the rest is history...

Accomodations

The Curtiss Hotel