It took two first dates for Nuala O’Connor and Peter Bass to fall in love.
In 2013, Peter Bass, 56, was chatting with a college friend from Princeton at an event in Washington.
“I was newly divorced and I had been doing the whole online thing and was finding it a little tiresome and challenging,” he said. “I think she was the one who said, ‘Would you be interested in meeting someone who shares a lot of your background?’”
The college friend had in mind Nuala O’Connor, 51, who is now a senior vice president and top data-privacy lawyer for Walmart. The two women had had a conversation a few weeks earlier, in which Ms. O’Connor, who had also divorced recently, asked if she knew of anybody who might be right for her.
“I have never been very intentional about going out and meeting people,” Ms. O’Connor said.
Mr. Bass, now the chief executive of Quberu, an online platform for businesses to manage international trade deals, agreed to be set up, and a few weeks later, he and Ms. O’Connor went on their first first date.
The two had dinner alone, and then met another couple for an evening of Shakespeare. At the end of the date, he kissed her on her cheek as she stood in front of her minivan, which was covered with stickers from her three children’s schools.
“I thought he seemed very sweet and very, very smart, and a little guarded,” she said.
The two did have much in common. They both had three children and had spent years in federal government service. She has a law degree from Georgetown as well as a master’s degree in education from Harvard; he has a law degree from Yale.
She nicknamed him “Culture Man,” as he seemed to have an endless supply of tickets to theater, opera, symphony. Finally, she told him, “I would be happy with pizza and a movie. That would be fine. That would be more my speed.”
Three or four months later, the “hiatus,” as he calls it, began.
“I got busy, she got busy,” he said. “It was probably moving a little too quickly for me. I was very attracted to her but the divorce was still fresh, and I wasn’t really ready to go in with both feet.”
Ms. O’Connor put it a little differently. “He ghosted me,” she said.
Months went by. And then, she started thinking about him again.
“I can confidently say he is the most well-mannered person I have ever dated,” she said. “Old-school manners: polite, a gentleman of the first order. And he’s got all those tickets.”
So she emailed him.
“I leapt at it,” he said. “By that point, I knew I had made a mistake the first time, and I was beyond grateful — beyond thankful — that she reached out to me.”
For their second first date, in September 2014, they again went to Shakespeare.
“I kind of knew after that second first date that she was special and this was the one,” he said. “She’s is unbelievably kind and at the same time honest and strong and just whip smart. Plus, she’s gorgeous.”
Ms. O’Connor said he is the “smartest and simply most humble human being I know, which I think is an intoxicating combination, particularly here in Washington.”
Two years ago, the couple was engaged and then bought a house together in Chevy Chase, Md. But with six children between them and their own commitments, they just couldn’t find a date to marry. Then Covid-19 came. “It suddenly occurred to us in the middle of this pandemic that everyone’s here,” Mr. Bass said.
So on June 21, in the backyard of their house, the couple married. Rabbi Sarah Tasman officiated via Zoom, with as many as 500 others, from all across the globe, also on the video link.
“We are choosing love and connection and companionship,” Ms. O’Connor said. “And a little bit of joy in a very difficult time.”
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