I met my boyfriend on a Facebook housing group. We were roommates for 2 years before we started dating.

• I met my boyfriend on a Facebook housing group.
• We lived together with two other people in a four-bedroom loft.

John and I met on a hot July afternoon in 2020 when he led me into an empty apartment in East Williamsburg.

He was showing me the place I had toured over FaceTime two weeks before from my childhood home in Buffalo, where I escaped in March to wait out the beginning of the pandemic. He had posted in a Facebook housing group stating he and another person were looking for two more roommates to fill out their four-bedroom loft.

I was wide awake at 2 a.m. on a June night, scrolling through the group, fueled by pandemic anxiety and desperation to get out of my childhood bedroom and back to the city. I didn't expect a response when I sent him a short paragraph about myself and asked if a room was still available. He responded immediately.

For the next hour and a half, we chatted on Facebook Messenger about the exciting plans he had for the loft. Our friendship was born. I signed the lease to the apartment, packed up my things, and came to New York.

I moved into a four-bedroom loft with John and two other roommates

For the next two years, John and I, along with two other roommates named Jack and Jewelyn, lived together in our East Williamsburg loft. We had to become each other's best friends. These were the days before vaccines when no indoor restaurants or bars were open and people were forming small pods for social interactions. We bonded in that loft, hosting little parties with just the four of us, decorating pumpkins and cookies and other holiday treats, playing Fortnite or Fall Guys, and cooking dinner.

John and I were completely platonic. He was like a protective older brother, critiquing my Hinge profile and playfully making fun of any dates I brought back to the apartment. He had a girlfriend, too, at the time. The thought of us ever being anything more than roommates and best friends was alien, even gross. "He's like my older brother, ew!" I'd tell friends if they asked.

When John and his girlfriend broke up during our second winter living together, we started going to singles mixers together. We were each other's wingman; he made sure to stand near me if any guy was being creepy while I went up to him if he wanted to make another girl jealous. We were a team, circling events, mingling, and making sure to spend enough time away from each other so others didn't think we were together. I helped edit his dating profile, and we even went to Costa Rica to visit a friend and then to Coachella together as friends. We were a team. Nothing was romantic.

Our relationship was totally platonic — until it wasn't

It wasn't until the following fall that things started to get confusing. I took a scuba diving trip to the Cayman Islands and FaceTimed him every night, telling him about the fish I saw that day. That was when I first thought — am I talking to John too much?

Did roommates and best friends text each other this often? Did they plan their weekends together and travel together like we did?

Is this… weird?

It seemed natural at the time because we talked every evening in our living room, smoking weed and watching cult documentaries.

I pushed those feelings down, down, down. "No," I told myself. "This is John!"

I started questioning things internally, afraid to admit to myself there might be something more there. He was not only one of my best friends but he was also my roommate. I couldn't hide from him or ignore him if something happened and then it got awkward, or things turned sour. We had a lease. His bedroom was 15 feet from mine.

We started to tease each other flirtatiously, and then when others confronted us about it, we would deny it. He drove me to the airport one afternoon when I was heading to Sri Lanka and jokingly said he was in love with me. I asked if he was doing a bit, and he answered with a chuckle and said, "Am I? Maybe." We left it at that, but FaceTimed every morning and every night while I was away.

Then, when I got back, if we went out with a group of friends to a bar, we would do things like "accidentally" hold hands for a few seconds while walking home before drunk-eating bodega food and passing out on the couch together.

Once we had our first kiss, we never looked back

One October night, we fell asleep on the couch together. Sunday morning came around, and we kissed for the first time, and never stopped.

We joke that we did things in reverse: most couples date for two years and then move in together. But we lived together for two years before we started dating. The wonderful thing is when we started dating, there were very few surprises. We've seen each other unfiltered and unshowered. We saw each other in other relationships. We knew what we were getting into.

We've been together now for about a year and a half. We moved out of the loft and got a place of our own — still with our own rooms, of course. It's what we're used to. And we have a big backyard for the dog we found in a plant shop — another meet-cute story for another time.