Meet us in Monterey!

Picture this - It's a lovely spring morning in Orange County, California, and a 20 year old Shae opens up the app "Hinge" on her phone, to find a 21 year old Andrew had "liked" her. She scrolled through his profile with her friends, and noted that his height was listed as 6'3" and that he had played baseball at their shared college, Chapman University. She would have "liked" him back solely because of his height, but the ability to refer to him in conversation with her friends as "baseball boy" was an added bonus. Andrew and Shae began chatting, and after a few days, Andrew asked if Shae would be interested in meeting him for a date. She was apprehensive. Though he was tall, he was also a random stranger (or so she thought). She needed more time, so she fled the country on a spring break trip to Mexico, and thought the proposition over. Upon her arrival back home, she made the decision to oblige Andrew's date request. The spot: Yogurtland The purpose: Love (or free yogurt. Shae would have been happy with either.) The Day: April 1st, 2019 (NOT an april fools joke) The first date led to another 6 months of dates. During this time, they watched a lot of Jersey Shore, they ate many poké bowls, they visited San Diego, Salinas, San Francisco, and they "DTR"ed (defined the relationship) a total of 0 times. Basically what you expect from two dummies in-like (not love...just like). But alas, all good things must come to and end. And end they did! Shae and Andrew decided to go their separate ways. During their separation, Shae went off to study abroad in Argentina. On her flight to South America, she did what you do on long flights with no wifi. She went through her camera roll. She fondly revisited memories of early college years, and as she scrolled through thousands of pictures and videos, she saw a...familiar face. Shae thought she had first met Andrew on Hinge in 2019. She was wrong. Shae met Andrew at a Chapman University baseball party in 2017. At this party, Andrew loudly serenaded Shae to the sounds of High School Musical's "Start of Something New" (fitting right), a moment captured on video by Shae, but that had been lost in the archives of her camera roll until that moment, on a flight to Argentina in January of 2020. Little did Shae know that as she was discovering unknown memories, and pining after an old flame, Andrew was in the United States, pining himself. You see, while Shae was deciding to study abroad in Argentina, Andrew was deciding he needed Shae back. Andrew reached out to mutual friends to plot his return to Shae's life. This is when he found out Shae was out of the country and out of reach! He waited and waited and waited for her to get back. Unbeknownst to Shae, Andrew knew her return date from Argentina, and exactly 2 days after Shae touched down in the US (a timeframe Andrew planned out to offer "respectful space"), Shae received a text message from Andrew, asking her out for a drink. It was truly...the start of something new. They fell in love with one another on their first date back together or within 24 hours of it, and have refused to separate since! Now look at them, they are getting married and writing stories about their relationship in 3rd person!