Story
TLDR:
It all started on Clubhouse (the social audio app). Joe was moderating a room called "Asian Parents Giving Words of Affirmation". Basically, people would share about their days/their weeks and the panel would offer words of affirmation/encouragement, acting like their parents. This was in the height of the pandemic, it's a "you had to be there" kind of situation to fully understand it. Rachel DMed Joe after that room to tell him how encouraging and how much she appreciated being able to hear all the different stories and words of affirmation happening, while she was working at home..
Joe added Rachel on IG because he thought she was cute, but Rachel didn't add Joe until a couple months later. From there, Joe added Rachel on TikTok and they started exchanging videos/memes that ranged anywhere from Gen Z dancing, to podcast clips about life topics like relationships and love. This led to many deeper conversations about their life goals and aspirations. It was clear that both had interest in the other, but the way they dealt with the realization was different. Joe acted extremely hard to get, but started sending food/flowers to Rachel in early 2022. Rachel was 100% the more direct and forward one in their talking stage of 9-10 months.
Rachel and Joe finally got to meet in Seoul when Joe was put onto a short-term international project for 6 months in Seoul. We hit it off, started going on dates, became officially a couple months in, and became engaged about 4.5 months later.