It was Thomas Brian Fallon’s sense of humor that stood out to Rukhsar Azamee after matching on Hinge in August 2020.
“He brings the personality out of me that I never thought existed growing up in Afghanistan,” said Azamee, who was a broadcast journalist in Kabul before moving to New York in 2015. Since then, though she maintains a passion for journalism, she’s been working in accounting — also a “very strict and very serious” occupation, as she put it. “I never even thought that ‘Oh, I can be goofy. I could be funny.’”
The two met in October 2020 for their first date. While looking for Midnights, a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, they passed by each other without realizing it. Both were bundled up and wearing masks.
But then they made eye contact. “I was drawn to her eyes,” Fallon said. “I remember thinking, ‘I really hope that’s her.’”
Midnights was at capacity, so they went to the closest Thai restaurant and had dinner there. There was an ease and an absence of clunky introductions and awkward silences that both had encountered on other first dates. “I could pick the most random topic, and we could still talk about it,” she said.
But Azamee, now 33, was balancing a full-time job and graduate school at N.Y.U., where she received a master’s in global affairs. She also holds a bachelor’s in law from Mashal University in Kabul, where she grew up.
She was so busy that the next time they saw each other was a month later, and the third time was a month after that to celebrate New Year’s Eve at her apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
On that third date, Fallon, 34, asked her to be his girlfriend. He admired her honesty and directness. “She doesn’t play around,” Fallon said, which he found refreshing.
For Azamee, dependability and reliability were qualities she needed in a partner because she was living alone in New York while her entire family was in Afghanistan. Early on, Fallon proved to possess them.
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, Azamee’s parents, lifelong human rights advocates, were in danger. For 25 days, Azamee worked tirelessly to evacuate her family.
“I knew he came from a life of stability and love, and I often feared my reality might become too heavy for him,” Azamee said. “But he never left.”
Instead, he went to her apartment in the evenings after work, brought her food and told her to rest while he watched her phone in case any calls from Afghanistan came through. That September, her parents and siblings fled to Pakistan. (They eventually were granted humanitarian parole into the United States and made their home in Flushing, Queens.)
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But it wasn’t just Azamee who endured adversity. Fallon’s mother died in August 2022, and in December 2025, Fallon had heart surgery. “She was really there for me that entire time as well,” he said.
“She remembers everything I tell her,” Fallon said, “including my favorite childhood pastry — rainbow cookies from the Italian bakery near my parents’ home.” Now, on every birthday, she surprises him with a rainbow cookie cake from a different bakery.
“I miss her almost immediately after she leaves, and I feel re-energized the moment she returns,” said Fallon, a client success manager at Adsquare, a software development company based in Germany that specializes in location data. He earned a bachelor’s in business administration and management from Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, N.Y. He grew up in Mineola, N.Y.
In October 2022, Azamee, now a global compliance and reporting manager at Ernst & Young, and Fallon attended a wedding together. He posted some photos on Instagram, thinking nothing of it. In one photo, she was wearing a backless dress and kissing him on the cheek. An aunt in Afghanistan saw the photos, printed them and shared them with family in the country and out.
“Afghan families are large and deeply connected, and some relatives stopped speaking to me and my immediate family because I was dating someone outside my culture,” she said, adding that the fallout with family members who are more conservative was bittersweet.
“Since I have met Tom, and we have built a life together,” she said, “I feel like my life has changed a million times for the better.”
He proposed in December 2024 at One if by Land, Two if by Sea, a restaurant in Greenwich Village. Azamee ordered a tiramisù, and servers brought a domed platter that held red flower petals and a diamond ring.
On July 31, the couple were married at the Queens Office of the City Clerk by Cynthia Cummings, a city clerk. They celebrated with friends and family in Astoria, where they now live, with lunch at Mama Coco Taqueria & Cevicheria and drinks at Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden.
On Aug. 13 and 14, they held a larger Afghan wedding celebration in Portland, Conn., with a ceremonial Nikkah, a henna party and a reception with 130 people, including members of both families.
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