It all started on my birthday in September 2022.

I was out celebrating when I met Ravinder’s sister Sim and his sister in law Avneet. Sim already happened to be friends with one of my best friends, which now feels like the first little sign that our worlds were already quietly overlapping.

As the night went on, we all ended up at another spot together and Avneet asked if I was single. I said yes, and she told me her brother in law was single too and that she thought we’d really hit it off. She took my Instagram, and that was basically it.

No dramatic introduction. No instant love story. Just Avneet quietly doing a little matchmaking and then disappearing from the plot for a few months lol.

A couple of months later, Ravinder was out for his friend Ravi’s birthday. Avneet was there, and so was Christina, who is Ravi’s wife and also one of my really good friends. Somehow the conversation turned to the fact that Ravinder was still single, and naturally both of them had someone they thought he should meet.

Then Avneet mentioned me.

Christina was shocked when she realized the girl Avneet was talking about was me, which honestly makes the whole story even better. Apparently everyone in our lives was somehow connected except the two people who were actually supposed to meet.

Then in January 2023, Ravinder followed me on Instagram and eventually made his way into my DMs. I had posted a video of my dad watching the Knicks game while we were out at a birthday dinner, very much a “can’t take him anywhere” kind of post. Ravinder, being Ravinder, saw basketball and of course couldn’t resist. He replied to the story and very respectfully started a conversation.

In hindsight, it’s probably the most Ravinder way this could have started. Give the man an opening to talk basketball and he’s taking it lol.

The funniest part was that I still had absolutely no idea he was the brother in law Avneet had told me about months earlier.

And because apparently the universe really enjoys a slow burn, about ten years earlier Ravinder and I had both been at Christina and Ravi’s wedding and somehow never met. We were literally in the same room and still managed to miss each other.

So before we ever spoke, we had already been in the same rooms, around the same people, and quietly orbiting the same little world for years.

It just took one birthday night, a few very invested friends, some casual matchmaking, a Knicks game and one Instagram DM for us to finally find each other.