The love story of Grace and Eric began when both were making drastic changes in their lives and starting their new careers . Grace was an Optician with no hope of upward mobility and Eric was working at Sam’s Club as a butcher, baker, but not a candlestick maker. Looking to become developers, Grace and Eric enrolled in a coding bootcamp in two different cohorts. When Grace was going through her bootcamp, Eric became the Teaching Assistant halfway through as a replacement.

After graduation, the two became close friends. They chatted about work as she became a TA herself and he was promoted to Instructor. They bonded over their love of queso, nerdery, and ribeye tacos from Banditos. Soon mutual friends asked them when they were going to make it official that they were dating, but both said they were purely platonic friends.

One day for some reason, they started to realize that maybe they should become more than friends. Over a fondue dinner that was honestly pretty romantic for two totally platonic buddies, Grace asked Eric if he’d like to go on a Proper Date.

The waitress chose that point, with the perfect timing of a romcom, to appear and cheerfully recite every single dessert option and even went as far as to what her brother’s favorite was. This left Grace sweating bullets for a good five minutes. But after she finally left them alone, Eric gave an enthusiastic “Yes!”

Needless to say, their real first date became their last first date.