Ten minutes into Gregg Bonti and Alex Randall’s first date, Mr. Bonti was smitten. “I’m going to marry this man or he’s going to ruin my life,” he said.
When Alex Patrick Randall and Gregg Kittredge Bonti signed and submitted papers to become registered domestic partners at Brooklyn Borough Hall on April 5, 2024, the ground beneath them shook. An earthquake had rattled New York City.
“We like to joke that our love moved the Earth,” Mr. Randall said.
The couple met in October 2021. When Mr. Randall first came across Mr. Bonti’s profile on Hinge, he liked that Mr. Bonti was a special-education teacher.
“I could tell from that he would be patient and kind and caring,” Mr. Randall, 31, said.
For their first date, which was on a weekday after a long day of teaching, Mr. Bonti, 30, chose Walter’s, a restaurant down the block from his Fort Greene, Brooklyn, apartment. (Walter’s would become a recurring location in their love story.)
The pair sat in the outdoor dining booth and took their time with their meal as they opened up to each other about their upbringings, ambitions and even plans of having a dog one day.
“Previously, I remember I would sit down at a date and know kind of in the first 10 minutes, that wasn’t my person,” Mr. Bonti said.
But on this first date, within the first 10 minutes, he was deeply enamored, Mr. Bonti said. After dinner he showed Mr. Randall around his neighborhood, dropped him off at the Nevins Street subway station and kissed him goodbye. Mr. Bonti then called his best friend, Sami Schwaeber, and told her, “I’m going to marry this man or he’s going to ruin my life.”
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