She Warmed Up to Him After Burning Man

Ms. Green worked as an account manager at Contentful, a software content management platform. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware and a master’s from the University of South Florida, both in environmental engineering, and an M.B.A. from N.Y.U.

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Mr. MacRae, who graduated from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., with a bachelor’s in political science, was a product manager at Lithia, an automotive retailer, in Portland. Until last year, he was a product manager at UserTesting, a software research platform.

They parted ways without even exchanging numbers.

Three months after Burning Man, the pair went to a small reunion with camp members aboard a couple’s houseboat in Sausalito, Calif., and chatted for hours. The next day, they met in a group at a sports bar. Yet again, they left without exchanging numbers.

In March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Ms. Green began weekly virtual get-togethers in the evenings with Picklers. One night, around 1 a.m., when she and Mr. MacRae were the only ones left, they finally traded numbers.

He asked her on a virtual dinner date for the next Friday — together, they prepared and ate jambalaya. A week later, for their second date, they prepared and ate steak with béarnaise sauce.

“I really wish that I could be there,” he told her the next day, to which she replied, “Why don’t you come down here?”