I moved to the Bay Area in January 2020, before the pandemic was a glimmer in our collective eye. I had left most of my friends and family back home on the East Coast and grew lonely soon after moving out West. Then the pandemic hit and we all started sheltering in place, which didn't make things easier.

Over the next few months of isolation, I hung out with my new California roommates and spent lots of digital FaceTime with my family and friends, but I longed to be in a relationship.

In August 2020, a recently married cousin suggested I download Hinge, a popular dating app. I was skeptical. Were people still dating in lockdown? How would we go on a date with everything closed? What if I got COVID? With so many questions, I decided to create some ground rules.

First, I would have to meet any guy over FaceTime first. Not only did FaceTime provide a safe meeting option, but it allowed me to see how the guy responded to potentially awkward situations. Video chats can be clumsy and tiring, but I figured if the guy could carry on a conversation and it didn't feel like yet another Zoom meeting for work, maybe there was something there.

Second, I was going to pay close attention to how each guy interacted with me through the app. I even created a spreadsheet. I found it hard, after swiping left and right on countless profiles, to keep track of who was genuinely interested in me and, more importantly, who I was genuinely interested in. I kept notes on what we talked about, whether we talked throughout the week, and of course, whether the man I was talking to was open to meeting over FaceTime first.

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Some guys disqualified themselves by insisting on meeting in person first. Other guys who did agree to meet on FaceTime clearly hadn't showered for days and weren't taking care of themselves in the pandemic. A third subset didn't actually want to talk to me — they wanted a person to talk at, not with.

Finally, after about 30 duds, I met Shaishav. He DM'd me on the app, exclaiming how brave I appeared to be in one of my pictures where I’m holding a tarantula and conquering my fears. We exchanged pleasantries and small talk, and the conversation began to flow effortlessly.

A shot over the shoulder of a woman who was holding up a cell phone, talking on a video camera app with a man who is smiling. — I was wary of meeting strangers in person when I started dating in a pandemic, so my first date with Shaishav was over a FaceTime call. To our surprise, the conversation flowed effortlessly. (Beth LaBerge/ KQED News)

He played the guitar, was a fan of the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and Pink Floyd, and was an avid reader, just like me. He had immigrated from Mumbai five years ago to work for a tech company in San Francisco. Above all, he was warm and put me at ease. At times, I forgot I was on a date.

I learned that he lived with his family, who had also recently moved here, and had to be careful about COVID because he didn’t want to infect his parents. We agreed to meet up in person a few days after our video chat, but we wanted to remain masked and meet outdoors. He suggested a hike in Golden Gate Park.

A man in a black jacket and dark pants waves as he walks. He has black hair and wears a COVID mask, with grass and trees behind him. A woman is in the front right of the frame turned away from the camera, blurred. — On a fall afternoon in 2020, I met Shaishav for a first date in Golden Gate Park. We couldn't see each other clearly through our masks, but I was already attracted to him. (Beth LaBerge/KQED News)

Our date just happened to be on one of the hottest days of the 2020 summer heat wave. I showed up in biker shorts, an old T-shirt and good hiking shoes. To my horror, he wore a T-shirt and slacks. But if Shaishav was appalled or surprised by the dress code mismatch, he said nothing about it.

We walked throughout the park and talked about everything: our families, how we ended up in the Bay Area, our work, hobbies and passions. Soon, it was dusk and he suggested we watch the sunset at Lands End, not too far from where we were. The lookout spot was incredibly romantic, teeming with couples holding each other. I expected Shaishav to make a move, to grasp my hand or put his arm around my shoulders. But he didn’t. He didn’t try anything and I found it so refreshing. We watched the sunset together as if we were old friends watching the sunset after a long walk.

Toward the end of the date, we decided to grab a burrito for dinner and eat outside, six feet apart. It was only then I saw his full face under the glow of a streetlamp. Months after that date, I asked Shaishav how he felt after that date.

“I was like, ‘Man, I have to wait a whole week — eight days to see her again?'” he said. “Because I wanted to see you again, just to get to know you, to talk to you.”

I drove back home feeling giddy and excited, but tried to keep my expectations low. After so many years of failed relationships and heartaches, I didn’t want to fall too fast or move too quickly.

This is why I believe the pandemic worked in our favor.

Dating in a pandemic means you have to be honest with yourself about whether the person you’re talking to is worth risking your health to hang out with. Keeping our distance, Shaishav and I had to rely on conversation to keep the mood going.

We shared embarrassing stories from our past and were vulnerable with each other quickly into our relationship. We talked about our past relationships, what went wrong and what we were looking for. And we had to get creative to find safe, outdoor activities to do together, like going for a walk in Shoreline Park in Mountain View or going to the farmers market in the San Francisco Ferry Building.

A man and woman stand, backs turned to the camera, in front of a pond. The couple are turned to each other as if they're talking. — Shaishav and I became exclusive a couple months after our first date. We felt it was safer to hang out outdoors, so we had to get creative for date-night activities, like walking around a park or going to a farmers market. (Beth LaBerge/KQED News)

“As we started talking about music and our lives and you being genuinely interested in my background, that’s when it started to solidify for me,” Shaishav said.

Telling the parents

A couple months in, we became exclusive — and started talking about the future. Both sets of parents were first-generation Indian immigrants. My parents immigrated back in the '80s and Shaishav’s parents just five years ago. We were fully aware that the minute we told our parents about each other, they would start planning the wedding.

Sure enough, when I traveled back to Georgia in November to tell my parents about him, the planning began.

“All said and done, I’m an Asian parent,” my mother told me. “You tell me you met someone in your life who is special to you, I’m three steps ahead of you!”

My parents had a million questions: Where is he from? Is he employed? How tall is he? Is he a vegetarian? My mom, Aarati, says the fact that Shaishav was Indian was not a huge selling point for her, but she was impressed he had immigrated here, pulled himself up and was supporting himself.

Then COVID surged

After Thanksgiving, I traveled back to the Bay Are,a where COVID infection rates were rising. Remember, this was a time before vaccines were widely available. Shaishav and I decided to be more careful spending time together because we didn’t want to infect each other. That, and my roommate started throwing unmasked holiday parties in our apartment. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, I contracted COVID.

I was sick for two weeks after New Year’s, but the symptoms seemed to last forever. I got winded standing up, and walking down the hall to the bathroom felt like a trek up Mount Everest. The body aches kept me up at night, and I had trouble breathing deeply because my chest felt so heavy.

Shaishav wanted to come to my apartment and nurse me back to health, but given that his parents were living with him, I couldn’t risk him getting sick, too, and infecting the whole family. Instead, he insisted on dropping off groceries and food to my apartment. He drove down from San Francisco to San José every other day to bring me food and wave to me from outside my window. When he wasn’t driving to see me, he was calling day and night asking me to check my temperature and making sure I was eating properly.

By the time I recovered, I felt we had gone through something monumental together. It was a make-or-break experience that made me sure I wanted to move forward. In February, I decided to introduce Shaishav to my parents over FaceTime.

The FaceTime chat went spectacularly well. My mom and Shaishav grew up in Mumbai and swapped stories about the streets they walked down, the train stations they used to commute and the street foods you could only find in the city. Soon after that video chat, I was taking a COVID test and waiting for a negative result to meet Shaishav’s parents in San Francisco.

Inevitably, the conversation between all six of us turned to marriage. Now that their children had found someone special, both sets of parents wanted to find an auspicious date to perform an engagement ceremony.

In Hindu tradition, setting a date for an important event like an engagement or wedding is not so simple as to pick which dates the desired venue is available. You have to consult a priest who will provide a set of dates based on a calculation of the changing constellation patterns of my birthplace and date, and Shaishav’s birthplace and date.

The priest chose June 20 for the engagement ceremony.

But at this point, my parents had yet to meet Shaishav in person, and I wanted to get my parents’ blessing before making the ultimate decision of making him my husband.

A portrait of an engagement ring sitting atop a black covid mask, laying on grass. — My relationship with Shaishav was moving at light speed and he hadn’t even met my parents yet. I wanted them to meet Shaishav in person and give me their blessing before moving forward with an engagement. (Beth LaBerge/ KQED News)

So in April, about seven months after Shaishav and I started dating, we took COVID tests and got on a plane to Georgia. We created a COVID-safe plan. We would meet my parents briefly in the airport and then drive to my parents’ cabin in the North Georgia mountains to quarantine. Only after getting a negative COVID result would we drive back down to the Atlanta suburbs, where my parents live, so Shaishav could meet them and spend time with my family.

Shaishav and I both realized our relationship was moving quickly — so quickly that it was hard to take stock of exactly how we felt about each other — and whether we were sure we wanted to move forward. I talked to Shaishav that afternoon, after arriving in the cabin.

“Who you spend your life with is a really big question and one question I always had was, ‘How will I know when I’m sure?'” Shaishav said. “And interestingly, I feel like I never had that question with you. That was a real seal of approval that if I don’t feel like asking that question when I’m with you, that probably means I’m so comfortable.”

The feeling was mutual. Even though we’d only known each other for half a year, I could see so clearly that I wanted to marry him, that when I was with him, I wanted to stay with him. He met my parents, brother and sister in April and they all loved him. We received their blessing to move forward.

On a windy Saturday afternoon in May, Shaishav and I were back in the Bay Area and we returned to our first date spot at Lands End for a hike. He led me to a small alcove off the side of the trail, got down on one knee and proposed.

The happy couple pose in a vertical seflie, smiling at the camera, with Adhiti brandishing her engagement ring on her hand for the camera. — Shaishav and I got engaged on May 22, 2021, at Lands End in San Francisco. (Adhiti Bandlamudi/ KQED News)

Our families, elated, consulted with a priest to set our marriage date, which will be on Memorial Day weekend of 2022. But before that ceremony, which will feature traditions from my family’s Andhra heritage and Shaishav’s Gujarati heritage, we got married in San Francisco City Hall on Nov. 15.

Now that we’re vaccinated, we have started carefully stepping out into the world for the first time together, as husband and wife. It feels ... strange.

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There are so many experiences we’ve never shared because of the pandemic: concerts, dining in a restaurant, going to the movies and parties. It’s all new to us, but now we get to explore it all together.

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