Peter Nathan Hess had admired Sara Danielle David long before they actually met.

In 2019, Mr. Hess, 37, then a staff reporter at Spectrum, an autism research publication, had liked some tweets by Ms. David, 36, the astrology editor at Vice, about her work with the Writers Guild of America East union. But what really drew his attention, he said, was her sense of humor, including her profile picture of Gollum from “Lord of the Rings” wearing makeup and diamond earrings.

By 2021, the two were following each other on Twitter, now known as X. Mr. Hess happened to check out Ms. David’s Instagram account and sent her a message. They chatted for a couple of weeks, and then Mr. Hess asked Ms. David out.

“At first, I thought he wanted to meet to talk about union stuff,” Ms. David said, “but he made it clear that he was interested in me.”

Mr. Hess, now a writer at IBM Research in New York, invited Ms. David on a picnic in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn for their first date in May 2021.

“I didn’t realize that it was a thing to hang out at the cemetery,” Ms. David said. “It’s an arboretum and I learned a lot about the trees, plants and bugs from Peter that day.”

The two also talked for hours about writing, films and their families, then decided to have dinner together. They picked up Chinese dumplings and went to Mr. Hess’s apartment in Brooklyn to watch a movie.