When the pandemic hit back in March, we launched a new series called, Hunker Down Diaries. stories of people thrown together in unexpected circumstances. Today on the show we’re checking back in on one of those stories. We’re calling it: Love at First Quarantine, The Sequel.

The psychotherapist Esther Perel has pointed out that disasters – like, say, a global pandemic – often operate like “relationship accelerators.” They cause both a spike in divorce and a spike in marriages and babies. But what does a relationship accelerator do… for practical strangers?

Gali Beeri is 37 and works as an executive assistant. Joshua Boliver is 42 and does visual effects for movies. They both live in New York City. And when the city was preparing to lock down back in March, they made the unlikely decision to quarantine together… after their first date.