I know you’re all thinking right about now that we’re one of the few success stories that have occurred as a result of arbitrarily swiping left or right on the notorious hookup app. On an app that serves up an endless carousel of faces and cringe-worthy body shots (both men and women are guilty of this – I’ve checked) it sometimes gets disheartening to match with so many only to find that you’re having less than mediocre banter. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had where I’ve thought to myself that talking to a goldfish would probably result in better chemistry. Back to the topic of this post of how Chris and I met.
Yes – we met on Tinder (technically). We first matched on Tinder mid-August 2015 and yes I am an elephant that never forgets! I wish I could tell you a Hollywood love story about how we hit it off instantly and had hours of endless banter, romantic dates and late night phone calls. Fast-forward two years – here we are engaged and starting a family together in the suburbs. Truth is, we matched and that was about the end of that story. I did my usual “hello” to initiate the conversation because I prefer to be the instigator in most of these situations. Then there was nothing… for eight days. You could literally hear crickets chirping in the virtual background before I finally got a cursory response back.
Those of you who know me, I was quite frankly a little offended that it took eight days before I received an obligatory response (ok, I should probably give him credit for actually responding as some just don’t have common courtesy). I had mentally prepared myself to write him off for not responding in a timely manner but then realized that we lived in different states so our love story ended there – for the time being. Because long-distance relationships are doomed from the beginning if you ask me.
If you fast-forward another five months you’ll find me dabbling on yet another dating app, Happn this time. As fate would have it – we matched again. I like to think of Happn as the more civilized but stalkerish version of Tinder. I’ll leave my creepy dating stories and encounters for another post. Being the elephant that I am, I recognized Chris from a few months ago and decided to give the conversation another try. A response within an hour – a monumental improvement from our first exchange of pleasantries (sorry babe if you’re reading this but you said I could tell all!).
Now you’re probably thinking that they spent a few days with small chit-chat before meeting up for dinner and drinks and that’s that BUT there’s more. Remember how we lived in different states? Well I couldn’t quite figure out why these dating apps were matching us when we resided in different states. We later worked out that it was because of all the business trips he was taking to Sydney and how we must’ve crossed paths at certain stages when we worked in the city. Chris was travelling to Sydney almost every week in the months leading up to our second chance on Happn. Not surprising at all that no more such trips were required from his work for another three months after we started chatting again.
This was undoubtedly the longest period of idol discourse that I’ve ever had (probably in history too) with someone before we finally got to meet in person. Let’s fast-forward again three months of lengthy conversations and questionable snaps to May 2016 when we finally got to meet. It was during my first Fashion Week and we had decided to meet at one of my favourite bars in Sydney. You’re probably going – yep, this is it. Love at first site. Ha – if only.
Our first date was disastrous to say the least – it began with me being two minutes late and ended with us walking away in opposite directions after an awkward embrace. Admittedly Chris had had a bad day/week at work and wasn’t in the best of moods to be the charismatic man I was chatting to all those months but I didn’t find that out until later. Being a gentlemen he allowed me to order the food and mentioned that he ate everything but forgot to mention that he hated seafood. Being the Asian that I am and seafood obsessed weirdo, of course I ordered a sh*t tonne of seafood only to find out when it arrived at the table that he wasn’t going to touch any of it. I was less than impressed but we pushed on with the date. He tried to make jokes, I tried to laugh – the whole affair was just off so it wasn’t surprising that we parted the way we did at the end of the evening.
We went a few weeks without any exchange and decided to give a second date a chance when he was back up in Sydney for work. At last, I have good news to report – our second date was a success! So much so that we spent the next few days together and I may or may not have skipped work on one of those days to spend more time with him. Naughty I know! We’ve of course been together since and have a little baby boy together.
If you have any dating app success stories then share them with me because I love hearing about them!
Read more about our pregnancy journey here.
