After agreeing to dinner, Vina told Noah that drinks would be a safer choice than dinner (an ongoing debate about first date etiquette). As luck would have it, they only served drinks with food where they were sitting, so they were forced to order appetizers after all. They spent the evening talking about their favorite things: musicals, spreadsheets, karaoke, and dogs, while sharing nachos and a margarita. They hung out for maybe 2 hours, hugged goodbye, and went their separate ways.
That evening, Noah immediately texted his friends about his excitement. Vina had mentioned during the date that she had a spreadsheet where to track the dates she had been on with notes about them to jog her memory (she had a spreadsheet for tracking most everything else, so this was less weird than it sounded). Noah got a kick out of this, so he decided his first move was to attempt to recreate a joke version of that spreadsheet for her, in which of course he would rank himself the highest, in the hopes this would impress her.
He then used that same spreadsheet to share ideas for a possible second date:
From here, he started to get nervous. While she seemed entertained by his efforts, there was still no obvious second date on the books. After nearly seven years of being single, Noah hadn’t met anyone like Vina, so he decided to just go all in. He asked her for her karaoke playlist, which they’d also discussed on the date, which he then used to make her a custom karaoke app!
Surely he thought between two custom spreadsheets and a karaoke app, this would land him a second date. But sadly life had other plans, and timing wasn’t right for Vina, who was simply tired of dating and wanted to pause for a bit. A huge bummer for Noah. Vina was fresh off the heels of trying very hard to put herself out there and date. Still being Covid conscious, meeting new people was easier through the dating apps — and she tried them all! By the time she met Noah, introverted Vina had overdone it and was burnt out on dating. She also had a string of upcoming travel plans in April, a birthday celebration and plans with friends in May, and then her mom was visiting for a few weeks in June. Aside from the burnout, she had a very busy April through June, so she deleted the apps. As it turns out, it was a much needed reset that would bring her back to Noah.
Fast forward a few months, they kept in touch here and there, occasionally texting updates on what they were up to (unsurprisingly mostly relating to musical theater and karaoke). Noah had hoped that maybe eventually timing might better align, and that she’d come around for a second date. She kept responding, so he felt that was a good sign that there was still a chance!
Noah received a text late on a Sunday evening in mid June, in which Vina asked him for edit access to the original spreadsheet he had sent three months prior! He literally jumped out of his bed in excitement. That weekend, Vina flew back from New York, drove to Modesto to pick up her mom (who was visiting her mom), then drove her to Murrieta, where her folks live. For those counting, that was a 6+ hour flight, 2 hour drive to Modesto, then a 6+ hour drive to Murrieta, hence the late text upon arrival at her parents’ place Sunday night. She told her mom about their first date on the car ride and it made her think she should ask him out on that second date.
What a wonderful way to ask him on again for a second date after all this time! He was overjoyed, but tried to play it cool, asking if it was so that she could add Skyler from Little Shop of Horrors to the list of dates she’d been on, and explained he could still compete having starred in Little Shop himself in high school.
They agreed to go on a second date that Monday, as they were both off work for Juneteenth. Noah picked Vina up in his car with Izzy to take her to Chrissy Field and go for a walk. They had a nice long walk down the beach, sat down for some snacks, played with Izzy, and chatted for hours. He drove her home, and she joked afterward that Izzy looked far too sad in the back of the car. So Noah, still determined to put far too much effort into inside jokes after now only having been on two dates, immediately photoshopped Izzy into happier more peaceful looking moments. To clarify, Izzy hates car rides and often looks miserable when she is subjected to them.
They’d gone on several more dates, and eventually made it official on July 3rd, 2022 with a really bad drawing Noah made in an attempt to be cute. Soon after, Hao and Jess were extremely kind to invite them to their wedding — this would be a very hard launch, in which Vina would meet over 100 of Noah’s closest friends all at once. Needless to say, she handled this swimmingly, and Noah knew this was someone he’d want to spend the rest of his life with. The rest was history…
How they met
