As fate would have it, Emily and I both moved to the Charlotte area in fall 2018 in pursuit of our careers. And in typical love story fashion, we met in spring 2019 through Hinge, “the dating app designed to be deleted.” The tagline held true, with us going on 5 dates in 10 days before having "the conversation," and thus deleting the app. Our first date was a Davidson College basketball game; I tried to be a gentleman, offering to drive her, but seeing as we'd never met before, she smartly chose to meet me there. I arrived early, and waited to walk into the arena with her; I remember seeing her get out of her car, and was instantly attracted. Her love for sports also turned out to be a huge plus; she was easily more into the game than I was, cheering as if she was the one who worked at the college instead of me. She met my brother the next day, and about a month later, I met almost her entire family (12 of them), when they came to visit Charlotte. Needless to say, we felt an instant connection, and haven't looked back since.

While I always believed I would meet my soulmate organically, I was swayed to jump on the Hinge train...just for a period of time. In fact the first time I created a profile, less than 8 hours later, I deleted it - only to recreate it about a week later. In God's perfect timing, I found Phil about 3 days after that second profile attempt and we began to message back and forth. I knew there was something there by how easy it was to talk with him and how I couldn't wait for the next message to come through - we then set a date to meet at a Davidson College basketball game. My hands were shaking when I parked my car in the parking lot, my heart was beating out of my chest and I was SO excited. I got out and walked around my car, immediately saw him, and knew. The saying I'd heard countless times before then "when you know, you know" could not have been more spot on for that moment. He walked up to me, smiling in the most genuine way - AND I KNEW. We had the best time at that game. Such a great time that I even asked him to have dinner with me that night! When you know, you know, right? We shared our first kiss in that parking lot, after the basketball game. While it caught me by surprise, it was the best moment of my life. Every moment after that, with Phil, has been the best moment of my life. Until September 19th, when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. TOP best moment of my life, as of yet.