Jared came to Harmony shortly after a number of citizens returned home from Rome. He first encountered Theresa Crane at the Blue Note when she accidentally dropped hot tea on his lap. Their first meeting didn't go well, but Jared was intrigued by her and soon asked her to dance. He was encouraged on the dance floor when she was all over him, but was angry when he figured out that she had been using him to get Ethan jealous. The two again ran into each other on the ball field when Jared accidentally landed on Theresa while trying to make a catch, and Jared assumed when he met the Ethans that Big Ethan was the father of Little Ethan, which Theresa quickly denied. Their discussion went wrong when Theresa's joke about a demanding boss led to Jared commenting on how bad female bosses are, and a later conversation where Jared stated he thought men were superior to women led to a ball game between the men and the women, with an evening's dinner as the wager.