Natalie was visiting LA to celebrate her brother's 40th birthday in December 2014. She had just moved to San Francisco a few weeks before and planned to fly back on the 21st, but her Southwest flight was cancelled, and she was rebooked for the next morning.

At LAX, she found out that her flight to SFO was cancelled (again), and her replacement flight was delayed. She had just started at Pinterest and was worried about getting to the office on time, so she switched to a flight into Oakland and grabbed an aisle seat.

A few minutes later, a disgruntled guy walked down the aisle and sat in the first window seat he could find. Natalie recognized him from the terminal. "Were you supposed to be on the delayed flight to SFO this morning, too?" she asked.

"Yep," he said, wanting to avoid conversation with any humans that morning after he, too, had changed flights two or three times.

After exchanging mutual complaints about SFO and flying, they started talking about more interesting things -- about being Jewish in San Francisco and about their favorite music.

When they got off the plane, Dean offered to help Natalie take BART for the first time to get downtown for work. Then he asked for her phone number right before her stop.

After a bit of texting and exchanging their favorite NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, Dean invited Natalie over to his apartment for Christmas Eve a couple nights later to share the Jewish ritual of Chinese food together with his roommate, Ian. In retrospect, that night was (technically) their first date.

And the rest is history!

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