But a week later, his roommates convinced him to ask her on a date. “We made a bet that if I didn’t text her, I’d have to run a 5K,” he said. “I’m not a big runner. So the text was sent.” As it whooshed from his screen, he threw the phone across the room. It sat on a sofa cushion for a half-hour.
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Meghan Brownlie had been quick to say yes for her sister. “She was just like, ‘Katie, just go and use it as a practice date. What’s the worst that can happen?’” Ms. Brownlie said. In early December 2018, Mr. Nagy picked Ms. Brownlie up to go bowling.
He won all three games they played, but he felt that the date was the conversational equivalent of a gutter ball. “I remember going back to my house and my buddies asking how did it go. I said, ‘She didn’t seem very interested.’”
She was, though: “I think I’m just a nervous person,” she said. “I thought he was handsome and a gentleman. I had a good time.” She texted him her thanks and said she’d like to see him again. Over lunch in Princeton, N.J., a week later, they reminisced about firehouse gatherings and discussed their careers. Ms. Brownlie teaches fourth grade at John Marshall Elementary in Edison, N.J. “That gave us a lot to talk about, the differences and commonalities between teaching elementary school and high school.”
By January, they were seeing each other regularly. On Jan. 26, 2019, after a boozy outing to the Famished Frog in Morristown, Mr. Nagy was feeling more in love than ever, and a little bold. “I said, ‘Do we want to make this official?’,” Mr. Nagy said. She did. “Our dads were thrilled for sure,” she said.
In the spring of 2021, they moved to an apartment in Bedminster. On Dec. 2, 2022, during a walk through the Morristown Green to check out the annual holiday display, he dropped to one knee and proposed.
