Remember summer 2019? It was a simpler time: The Bachelorette’s Hannah Brown, fresh off her breakup with country singer wannabe Jed Wyatt, asked runner-up Tyler Cameron out for a drink on the show’s “After the Final Rose” special. He said yes. They exchanged numbers. Bachelor Nation cheered. Things were good.

Two days later, the genetically gifted duo were seen outside Hannah’s apartment. Tyler was carrying an overnight bag, so naturally Twitter exploded with hopes that these two would get their happily-ever-after after all.

And then Tyler began dating Gigi Hadid.

I’ll be honest: I’ve met Hannah, Tyler, and Gigi, and they are all wonderful people. How could I be annoyed that Tyler was now dating Gigi, who is truly one of the nicest and savviest people I’ve interviewed? Even so, there was something about Hannah and Tyler that I couldn’t shake. Maybe it was the way Tyler talked about Hannah in all of our interviews. Even before he met her, he gave me a full list of reasons why they would make a great couple. Every time I talked to Hannah, she spoke about how respectful Tyler was and how she wanted a man who didn’t view her as a trophy wife.

Let me put it another way: I’ve never saved old episodes of The Bachelorette before, but I didn’t delete any Hannah/Tyler-centric ones from my DVR. I think it gave me hope about my own dating life—that there are guys out there who look that good, are driven, respect women, and have a heart of gold. If Hannah and Tyler couldn’t work out, I figured, then the only appropriate outcome was to make him the next Bachelor. At least then we’d get more Tyler in our lives.

We all know how that went. The Bachelor gig went to Peter Weber, Tyler and Gigi went their separate ways, and Hannah went on Dancing With the Stars.

So imagine my delight when I heard that Tyler was picking Hannah up at the Jupiter, Florida, airport in the middle of March, just as most cities were implementing stay-at-home orders. This came after Hannah had been to Florida a week earlier to celebrate Tyler’s mom, Andrea, who recently passed away. It was thrilling to see that their relationship, which originally took place in the bubble of reality TV, was now happening in the real world, on their own time.