The psychotherapist Esther Perel recently said that disasters operate like “relationship accelerators.” They cause both a spike in divorce and a spike in marriages and babies. Most of us are hunkering down with people we already have some sort of relationship with, but a few people have chosen to hunker down with 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. In March, as the city was preparing to lock down, they made the unlikely decision to quarantine together after their very first date.

Their story is part of our series Hunker Down Diaries, a collaboration with NPR. Over the coming months, we’ll be bringing you stories of people thrown together by the pandemic. If you have an idea for the series, we want to hear from you. We are especially interested in folks hunkering down with unexpected company, people on the front lines, and those without a safety net. Email us with your ideas hunkerdown@radiodiaries.org. Or find us on Facebook and Twitter.