Our story starts on Winchester Avenue in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago, some time in the early 80s. Paul's parents' families lived in the townhouses on either side of Waleeta's great uncle's house. Her parents lived a block away on Damen, where she was born.

By the time Waleeta was five, her family had moved away, but they still spent many, many weekends at her uncle's townhouse. In fact, there’s photo evidence that Waleeta and her cousin attended Paul's 4th birthday party magic show...as you can see above.

Many years later, Waleeta moved to Washington D.C. for graduate school and stayed for work. At the same time, Paul was in law school in Illinois. In 2007, he was doing legal research on Assyrian rights in the newly-liberated Iraq. Before heading to D.C. for a research visit, he was contacting people to better understand the situation from those who were on the front lines.

It was then that Waleeta's dear friend Michael “reintroduced” them and suggested they connect.

So Waleeta and Paul had lunch in DuPont Circle and discussed Assyrian politics. Paul wrote his article, had it published, and thanked Waleeta in the acknowledgements.

Fifteen years later, after a long legal career working downstate in Illinois’s capital Springfield, Paul moved back home to Chicago and joined a dating app.

Waleeta was also back in Chicago working as a software engineer and joined the app - for a total of about 10 days.

On her birthday - although he didn't know - he found her, liked one of her pictures, asked her out for coffee, and the rest is history.

You might say they've been winding their way toward each other their entire lives.