Months before he met Marcus Rafeal Donte Gresham on Tinder in November 2020, Darian Lamon Aaron got behind the wheel of his Toyota Camry and cried from Miami to Atlanta.
“I was just sobbing,” Mr. Aaron said, recalling how he drove along Interstate 95 with the Ariana Grande song “Thank U, Next” on repeat. He had moved to Miami in April 2020 to be with his fiancé, and after a nearly decade-long on-again, off-again relationship, they had broken up.
In Atlanta, the city he considers home, his job at as a journalist at the Counter Narrative Project — a nonprofit organization focused on the representation of Black queer and gay men in media, awaited him. Vestiges of a former love life did not. He downloaded Tinder that fall, though it was more of an insurance policy against loneliness than a signal of his openness to romance. “I wasn’t looking to be in another relationship,” said Mr. Aaron, 44, who is now the director of local news, U.S. South, at GLAAD, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group.
Neither he nor Mr. Gresham can remember who reached out first on Tinder that November, or even who asked to meet in person after six days of messaging and several phone calls. However, both recall a conversation that led them to develop a feeling of mutual respect for each other.
“Therapy came up,” said Mr. Gresham, 43, a professional backup singer. “That was an instant thing for us, because it was like, oh wow, there’s someone doing the work to make sure he’s the best version of himself.” When they met for a first date at Ponce City Market in Atlanta on Nov. 22, “we showed up our full, authentic selves and laid it all on the table,” Mr. Aaron said.
That table was at a Chinese restaurant, one of the market’s dining spots. “We always joke that he must have put something in my shrimp fried rice,” said Mr. Gresham, who was then working as a customer service representative at White Cap, a wholesale building materials company. “I haven’t been able to be without him since, nor have I wanted to.”
Within a week, they had met for a second date at Atlanta Botanical Garden. Mr. Aaron was moving to a new apartment at the time. “Before I knew it, Marcus was there every weekend,” he said. In March 2021, Mr. Aaron told Mr. Gresham he loved him. “It just slipped out,” he said. “Marcus saw the look of shock on my face, and he said, ‘It’s OK.’” Minutes later, Mr. Gresham told Mr. Aaron that he loved him, too. The moment solidified their commitment to each other, they said.
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Mr. Aaron grew up in Montgomery, Ala., and graduated from Alabama State University with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He came out to his parents when he was 16. “I had to liberate myself,” he said. “The only thing in my closet is clothes.”
At 18, he moved to Manhattan to study musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After two semesters, he left school to work as a performer, singing and dancing in touring productions on cruise ships and at theme parks. He was in his mid-30s and working full time as a flight attendant at Republic Airways when he started attending Alabama State University, sometimes hopping on a plane on standby to make it to class.
Mr. Gresham is an Atlanta native who grew up singing, beginning at age 4 in choruses and choirs, he said. Black Southern Baptist churches were his training grounds. An aunt who taught him to harmonize with a cousin was one of his first vocal teachers. “When my family gets together, it’s nothing for us to get together in song,” he said. “We’ll start singing gospel, R&B, anything.” He attended Mercer University with plans to eventually earn a law degree, but he dropped out for financial reasons; music had long felt more compelling anyway.
Mr. Gresham identifies as pansexual. He was 28 when he told his family. Their acceptance of him is “a combination of total and conditional,” he said. After Mr. Gresham proposed on Feb. 10 at the home he and Mr. Aaron moved into in Marietta, Ga., in 2022, they started planning a wedding — but not everyone was ready to celebrate. A few of their loved ones had religious objections to attending a gay wedding, Mr. Aaron said.
But on Oct. 20, when they were married at Glover Park Brewery in Marietta, the support of their 110 guests overshadowed any absences. Mashaun D. Simon, a former pastor with the nondenominational House of Mercy Everlasting church, who is also affiliated with the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, officiated the ceremony. Instead of bridesmaids and groomsmen, their wedding party consisted of what they called “he/hims” and “she/hers.”
A level of curiosity among guests was expected, Mr. Aaron said. “A lot of them come from traditional Southern Christian backgrounds and have never been to a gay wedding,” he said. Worrying about their guests’ perceptions, especially toward their first kiss as a married couple, was unavoidable leading up to the celebration, they said, but it didn’t temper their passion on the day of. “In the moment,” Mr. Gresham said, “all of those nerves went away.”
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