I’d like to say I was running through the streets of Villanova and Pearl couldn’t help but introduce herself. The truth—our story starts as many do in 2024, with a midnight swipe right. Her: 6 foot 1, 33 years old, former Villanova basketball player (casual), from the Bronx. Me: 5 foot 10, 29 years old, former West Windsor-Plainsboro Highschool varsity letter man (wow, impressive), from Plainsboro, NJ. As the reader I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing—they are perfect on paper with no differences in sight. Alas, sitting in Florida, thinking the same as you, dear reader, most definitely not worried I’d be wasting a Hinge swipe, I went for it. I mustered up the best opener I could (probably something like “Hey, how are you?”) and fired it off into the Hingeosphere, thus beginning the long-awaited sliding door moment of my life. She matched with me (surprised? I promise I wasn’t!), we engaged in the ever-fun online dating small talk, and I was able to secure a date (shout out to the House of William and Merry). That cold November night, over a dinner table in Hockessin Delaware, as only two maniacs would do, we discussed everything from politics, religion, social media, and most importantly—our shared desire of having a family and as many kids as God would allow. I left that date holding my cards close, but the feeling was unshakable, that girl was worthy of every year spent waiting for her. Sliding door slides more… One more date, a Florida holiday break or two, pet medical procedures (Ripley perseveres), and the girl’s move to Haddonfield preceded the year of 2025. We may have missed a karaoke date, but we figured it out. I may have offered to build her new apartment furniture fully expecting her to decline (she did not). The result—an unhandy man in training to become a handy man, driven by the desire to drive 1.5 hours in traffic to hang with the girl I’d been searching for. The Eagles win the Super Bowl on February 9th, 2025, and I ask the girl to be my girlfriend on February 10th, 2025. The 10th is the day I remember more fondly, she said yes. Sliding door slides more. Since January 2025 we’ve not spent a week apart. Every seminal moment in the year we shared together, from family funerals, to Florida birthdays, to Cape May summers and weekends in Haddonfield and West Chester weekdays. We built our relationship on shared uncompromised values, and we charged forward to accomplish everything we had spoken about on day 1. Sliding door slides more… Enter Downingtown, (welcome by the way). My lease ending, and hopefully breaking hers, we sought out on a house search to find a place to share our life together, unburdened by weekly commutes. In Downingtown we found a beautiful and thriving church community, a school district we could be proud of, a downtown filled with family-owned businesses, Amish farms in the adjacent town of Honeybrook, and most importantly a place and community we could make our own and call home. We closed on our home on October 8th, 2025 and we both moved in on October 9th (Pearl begins a new job at Catalent on October 6th). Continue sliding doors… As Pearl got acquainted with her new job, we began to make our new home ours. We met furniture makers to make custom pieces, traveled to Delaware to buy a couch (somehow Pearl convinced Costco to wire her 535 dollars to her debit card, true story), and made our required Ikea pilgrimage. We struggled to compromise on every piece (two juggernauts in one union) and yet every final decision was ours and one worth the journey. We spent the Holidays with my family and we picked out a ring. 2025 ends with an agreement to go all in and to get married sooner than later. Sliding door is nearly fully open… ***If you’d like to read the rest of our story, copy the link below into your browser to read our full story HERE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11zr_YwTPC50aa47hNBK-qu6gEjI77aSOA62xydTKoq0/edit?usp=sharing