Let Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik serve as evidence: if you're invited to a party, you should always go.

Hadid, who's busy lighting up fashion shows across New York City, appears on today's (February 10) episode of The Ellen Degeneres Showand between talk of Vogue covers and Faith Hill fandom, Hadid explained how she and Malik met. And, as is the case with many stories of young love, it all started with a friend's event.

"We actually met at a friend's birthday party a few years ago," she says in the clip above. "Then, he was in New York to come to the Victoria's Secret show... and ended up not coming, and I was like, 'I'll play it cool, I'll go to the after-party.' He wasn't there. And then later that week, we ended up going on our first date."

Still, the aloof act didn't last for very long, Hadid said, and she and Malik wound up showing their cards pretty quickly.

"We played it cool for like ten minutes, and then I was like, 'You're really cute,'" she explains. "We connected, like, really quickly. We have kind of the same sense of humor and sharing videos."

And the connection seems to have stood the test of time — more than a year after their first date, Hadid and Malik are still together, and Hadid told British Vogue ahead of its February issue that the couple has hit a definite stride.

"We like late-night movies and we order from this amazing place that does lattes and gingerbread cookies," she said. "I need coffee to stay up. I’m always like, ‘Babe, let’s go to a movie.’ Then I fall asleep halfway through and he’s like, ‘You’ve seen the first half of every movie out there and you have no idea how any of them end."

Gigi + Zayn's Sweetest Relationship Moments:

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