Tyler and I met in May of 2024 after I had spent months complaining to my mom that there was nobody genuine left on dating apps and that I was finally ready to delete them forever. Ironically, while I was in California with my brother and sister for the music festival “Just Like Heaven,” I decided to do one last scroll on Hinge before deleting the app. Enter: Tyler. What first caught my attention was his genuine smile, bright red hair (because apparently I had always dreamed of dating a redhead), and of course, the goldendoodle in one of his photos. Honestly, the dog may have sealed the deal. A few hours after we matched, Tyler messaged me at a suspiciously late hour, and my immediate thought was, “Oh great… here we go again.” But instead of the usual dating app nonsense, his message was sweet, thoughtful, and easy to talk to. We ended up talking nonstop for months. About a month in, I learned Tyler was actually stationed in Poland on a mini deployment, so our relationship started with time differences, FaceTimes, and a lot of patience. After a few unexpected life events — including Tyler accidentally ghosting me for a week after breaking his phone — we finally had our first date when he picked me up from the Austin airport after I had attended a funeral. Why I trusted a stranger to drive me home and got ready for a first date in an airport bathroom is still beyond me, but somehow it felt easy with him. The second I spotted Tyler waiting for me at the airport in his funky bright polo and neon running shoes — which, to be fair, he had promised would make him impossible to miss in the crowd, and he was absolutely right — I immediately texted my friends: “Oh my gosh… he’s real and he’s cute.” Our first date included Tyler struggling to escape the Austin airport parking lot, driving us all the way to Georgetown because I incorrectly assumed that’s where he lived based on his Hinge location, and me unsuccessfully hinting that I wanted post-dinner ice cream at Kilwin’s. Instead, Tyler dropped me off before 8 PM… but then we sat in the parking lot talking for hours. Hearing him talk about his family, his life, and who he was is when I realized I was already in trouble. After ending the night with an awkward side hug, I genuinely thought I’d never hear from him again — especially when he forgot to text me after getting home. What I didn’t know was that he actually lived over an hour away and had driven all that way just to take me on a first date. The next morning, I woke up to a text from Tyler, and from that point on, we made the distance between Austin and Killeen work through FaceTimes, long drives, and constant communication. Somehow, the distance only made us stronger — and the rest is history.