It was Thanksgiving 2023. Vi was visiting friends in the DMV area, fully rolling her eyes at the Christian dating app (quick shoutout to Upward) for automatically updating her location. "So silly!" she thought, swiping through profile after profile... "I would never date anyone from here... it's an 8-hour drive from where I live!" She was swiping for fun and forgot about it almost immediately. Back home, random dates with strangers came and went. Nice enough guys, fine enough conversations, but nothing really clicked for Vi. When January 2024 rolled around, Vi was quietly quitting the apps and done with the whole exhausting process of hoping someone on her phone screen might turn into something real. Then, on a random Monday night mid-January, her phone buzzed. A message from a guy named Luke who lives in Maryland (?!) "Hey Vi! Love your sense of chic and colorful style! How has your new year been so far?" Vi stared at it, genuinely confused, "Who is this? How did he match with me?" She had absolutely no memory of swiping on him... However, she had, in fact, swiped on him months earlier from the Thanksgiving trip she'd already mentally filed away. What she didn't know was that Luke had quietly stepped off the dating app for a while to study for his big exam. He'd been gone. And now, out of nowhere, he was back! She almost didn't respond. But boy aren't we glad she did?! That first message came in at 9:34PM on Monday, January 15th, 2024. By the time they finally said goodnight, it was nearly 4AM the next day.

Back in 2023, I gave myself a long dating hiatus and filled that year with lots of flights, road trips, concerts, therapy, and fitness personal bests to help me move past my previous/short-lived relationship. As an introvert who never found dating natural, putting myself out there the year before had been a big leap. After some not-so-memorable interactions, I took another short break to focus on my professional exam. After a post-exam celebratory road trip with family at the end of 2023, I finally checked back into the dating apps. On one particular snowy January night, I was praying to God that I'd find someone just as smart, funny, sweet, and amazing as me. Having been away from Maryland, I was seeing profiles from Virginia to Florida... until a surprising profile from someone in Massachusetts. Despite never having been anywhere west of Boston, I swiped right and fortunately it was a match! I messaged first, complimenting Vi's chic and colorful style. We quickly exchanged numbers and texted for hours past our bedtimes until 4AM. Tired the next day? Sure. But elated that my prayer was already answered? Absolutely! Of course, there was a problem that we were more than 400 miles from each other… until Vi decided to drive the whole distance back to Maryland for our first date weekend! Our first date was at a café in Virginia called Base Camp (now affectionately known as Bae Camp). Later that day, we had a second date where we had dinner and walked around the cute Rio neighborhood in Gaithersburg, Maryland. A random kid asked us, "Does pineapple belong on pizza?" While Vi quickly and very excitedly said “Yes” (incorrect answer by the way!), I stood by my principles and calmly responded “No”. Fortunately, that was not a dealbreaker for Vi, and thank God I survived another challenge. On our last date in the DMV, we visited the Air & Space Museum and shared a meal over Korean BBQ (aka I got to show off my chopsticks skills!) After saying our goodbyes, then came the real question: could this go the distance? To test that possibility, two weeks later, I decided to make the journey up north, catching flights and feelings. Later that weekend, after seeing Vi perform at a fundraising concert and how much she is loved by her friends and community, I asked Vi to be my girlfriend. And our long-distance relationship officially began!