There are two versions as to how we met. The first version is “through friends,” which is true—the second version is “on a dance floor,” which is also true—our mutual friend Manya made our introduction at 3am at Stereo, an afterhours EDM club in Montreal, in October 2019, by screaming our names at each other while others smashed into us. I had never heard of his Persian name before (Kourosh), so after several attempts at repeating it back to him correctly, I finally gave up, settled on an approximation, and waved my hands to indicate yes, I understood the pronunciation exactly, even though I didn’t. For the next several hours, we supplanted the “getting to know you” investigative courting ritual known to all with shared drugs and thrashing limbs; our explosive dancing, from the Middle East and American Midwest, synced up perfectly.