When I met over Zoom with J. Derwart and Alexandra Block on a Sunday in late fall that was unseasonably hot all across Southern California they were seated in their home in Sherman Oaks. As one of their cats, Sugar, lounged serenely on a sectional in the background, Block and Derwart, who married just last summer, told the story of how they met as undergraduates at Antioch Los Angeles , how they started dating, and why they both eventually decided to continue their educations by returning to Antioch to complete degrees in the Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology program.
Their first interaction was an argument over their interpretations of a particular poem. But soon they built a friendship. By this point, Block already had a crush on Derwart, and she thought their study session might actually be a date.
When Derwart arrived at her house in sweatpants, bookbag in tow, she realized that he honestly just wanted help with his essay. Derwart mentioned that he had been out of school for twelve years and genuinely needed pointers on syntax and grammar.
They had a ways to go before becoming a quintessential Antioch couple. As they got to know each other, Block learned that Derwart had spent his adult life working as a stand-up comic, actor, and contractor.
Derwart meanwhile, learned that Block had been a competitive equine athlete for most of her life, and that her father, like him, was from Baltimore. But back in that early study session, amidst a conversation about their classes and Antioch, they were not yet a couple, nor Antioch double alums. But it was during that not-a-date that something clicked for Derwart, and he realized that Block was actually interested in him, and he was interested in her. So he asked her out as soon as they were done studying, and they immediately had their first real date at the IHOP in Agoura Hills, since it was open late.
