This makes TOTAL sense, tbh. The "vanilla" characters I've written before always fizzle out on me because they're just so...I don't know. Hard to find fun in, I guess? But that's also me and my love of character torture.
ANYWAY, I've been brainstorming and may have a few ideas depending on his other interests. I feel like Sophie's other life as a divemaster probably lends her to meeting a ton of different people and that could have been a fun situation if he ever dove with her group (she's run dives up and down both sides of the state with a few shops she's worked for) and she'd remember him for his tipping or lack thereof depending, or something as light as frequenting the same cafe and her finally starting to annoy the crap out of him after x amount of time (she's been living there for almost three years) oooooor a few of her friends have kids so I can imagine her sort of tagging along to some kid activity on a whim for whatever reason and them meeting via that route? The possibilities are many!