Brittany came to Albuquerque on a travel nursing contract at the beginning of December of 2022. She already had plans on where she was going to next after her travel assignment was up. She wanted to get to know her new (although temporary) city better and wanted to score some free eats... so she downloaded Hinge. Hinge has many features that include having the ability to record your voice, answer questions about yourself, and so on. With that, Britt wanted to record on Hinge that she wanted to play a prank on her mom for Christmas by taking a picture on Santa's lap while in some themed pajamas, and that it would be a LOT funnier if there was a random cute guy to take a picture with to send to her mom for Christmas. Ryan was already on Hinge, looking to find his person. He came across Britt's profile and thought he was up for an adventure. When Britt found Ryan's profile, it seemed to be lust as first sight. They both swiped right on each other and planned to meet for a quick coffee at Cottonwood's Flying Star Cafe, go pick out PJs, sit on Santa's lap, and call it a date. They met at Flying Star, and what was supposed to be a quick grab of coffee turned into a 3.5 hour long coffee date. They discussed their lives, their morals, and why they haven't yet found love. After these initial sparks flew, they went to Cottonwood Mall to pick out some matching PJs. They ended up mixing and matching; finding a 'Golden Girls' shirt to match with some 'Black Santa' pants. They found the pants at Old Navy.... where they had their first kiss during checkout! Romantic, I know. When they were done checking out, Ryan had some bad news. He unfortunately ran out of time and they would have to re-schedule seeing Santa for a different day.... so they would have to see each other again. BUMMER. They scheduled to see each other 2 days after that, but never stopped talking from that point on... and the love story sprang from there!