Months before he met Marcus Rafeal Donte Gresham on Tinder in November 2020tmt play, 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.”

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