Jirair Ratevosian and Micheal Osa Ighodaro orbited around one another for six years through their work in global health policy and H.I.V. advocacy before ever meeting.
It wasn’t until December 2018 that they finally met at an annual winter solstice holiday party hosted by their mutual friends Kent Klindera and Damon Bolden in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The event is known for bringing together H.I.V. and L.G.B.T.Q. activists from around the world, Mr. Ratevosian said.
When they spotted each other in the crowded kitchen, the attraction was immediate. “I was looking at him and he was looking at me,” Mr. Ighodaro said. “There were 50 or 60 people there,” Mr. Ratevosian said. “So, for our eyes to lock, it had to be fate.”
The two met and chatted briefly, but, Mr. Ratevosian added, “I thought he was out of my league.” Still, he messaged Mr. Ighodaro on Facebook a week later. “Happy Xmas,” the message read.
Both were traveling a great deal at the time, domestically and internationally, but they kept in touch through texts and met at airport lounges during layovers. “It was casual and fun, but we didn’t define it,” Mr. Ighodaro said. They also saw each other at two H.I.V. conferences — one in South Africa in January 2019 and one in Rwanda in December 2019, and later that same month, when they both attended the annual party where they met a year earlier. (This time, “we sneaked a kiss upstairs,” Mr. Ratevosian said.)
