It all started when Ankitha stumbled upon Amol’s profile on Hinge, a dating app, and was intrigued by this prompt to which she responded, “Yes!! 🍃”. After flattering Ankitha with his profile, Amol asked her out for coffee. To his surprise, she said no and suggested a FaceTime call because she was busy with her 2nd year in med school😅. Nonetheless, they first met (virtually) on August 24th, 2022 and a call that was supposed to be one hour ended up going for almost three!

Ankitha and Amol met for their first date on September 3rd, 2022 in New Jersey (thanks to Amol for agreeing to travel there) at the Edison Automat where they both ordered the same pancake dish! This spot would become one of their go-to brunch spots!! Their date continued at the Menlo Park Mall, where they went to Color Me Mine and painted together. The date basically spanned the whole day, and when Ankitha dropped Amol off at Metropark station, they both knew that this was the start of something very special between them❤️ It was here that Ankitha also realized that she would need to spend more than 10,000 hours to upgrade Amol’s painting skills…

Amol and Ankitha met for their second date in New York City! They went to see Hamilton on Broadway together which was AMAZING, and had dinner at a vegan restaurant called Planta Queen. They ended the night by walking around Central Park and with Amol running to hail a taxi to get to Penn Station on time for Ankitha’s train (a pattern that continued)!

Ankitha and Amol celebrated their first Halloween together, dressed up as chefs from a Sketchy Micro video (iykyk - it’s a medical study tool)! They also spent their birthdays together, especially since they are exactly one week apart!

In the months that followed, Amol and Ankitha unwittingly became NJ Transit’s largest revenue driver by traveling back and forth between NYC and New Jersey to see each other as much as possible! They had lots of memorable times running to make the train and delaying trains themselves - but that made their bond even stronger!

Ankitha and Amol went on their first international trip together to Singapore and Bali! On the advice of locals, they immersed themselves in the culture, enjoyed the great beaches, and unknowingly signed up for an ATV tour which became an experience they would never forget. Their bond grew especially strong after they nearly fell off sharp rocks into a river while accelerating up a ravine. Ankitha was very happy about Amol’s choice on that one (see picture to left). It was an incredibly memorable and life-changing trip for them!

Under the guise of showing his hometown to her for the first time, Amol brought Ankitha to Madison, WI to have a “belated Valentine’s Day photoshoot”. Little did she know that it would end up being an engagement photoshoot instead! Ankitha was so excited and quickly said “yes!” with a beautiful sunset in the background of the Monona Terrace💖