It’s Funny We Met On Hinge

Rich Text x Hinge, ft. Emma’s very modern love story.

Photo Credit: Canva

This newsletter post is sponsored by Hinge.

Adam and I always say that there are two stories of how we met. The short story is simple and straightforward: We matched on Hinge* in March of 2019. And then there’s a longer one…

I was raised on a steady diet of classic ‘80s and ‘90s rom-coms. My mother was the professor and I was the student, sitting rapt in front of the television, absorbing all of the lessons that my proxy profs Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers and Mike Nichols and John Hughes had to offer.

And thus, I became an expert on the “meet cute”; the sweet, quirky, and often-contrived way that two lead characters first encounter each other in a romantic comedy: Harry and Sally are set up on a post-graduation road trip, Joe wanders into Kathleen’s bookshop, Lucy saves Jack’s brother from being run over by a train, Andie and Benjamin are using each other for opposing bets, Annie hears Sam on the radio.

In George Axelrod’s 1957 satirical play, “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter,” literary agent Irving explains the concept to burgeoning writer George in plain terms: “The only important thing to remember is that – in a movie – the boy and the girl must meet in some cute way. They cannot, you understand, just be introduced. Or meet like normal people at, perhaps, a cocktail party or some other social function. No. It is terribly important that they meet cute.”

It seemed that the meet cute was what signalled a love story’s literary power. As if the origin story determined the outcome. So as I got older, I wondered when my own meet cute – one that didn’t end in disappointment and/or abject disaster – would arrive. Would it happen in one of my university classes? Or maybe, once I moved to New York City after college, on the subway? At an office happy hour? Hailing a taxi in the rain en route to the train station? (This actually happened to me once, but alas, the ensuing situationship did not result in a love story.) I was enthralled by the power of a great story. So meeting a life partner on an app, though practical, felt a little too mundane for my narrative sensibilities.

The first time Adam and I met, we were boarding a plane from San Juan, Puerto Rico back to New York City. It was February 2012, and it was deeply unromantic. I was severely sunburned (ah, the folly of being in your early 20s and refusing to fastidiously reapply your SPF 50), returning home after a holiday weekend away with my best friend Laura. We lined up at our gate, looking like two very raw lobsters stuffed into skinny jeans. And then Laura spotted a boy who looked familiar; a guy she had gone to college with. “That’s the Stanford guy that Kate’s been talking to!” she exclaimed.

Turns out, Adam was set to go on a date with another one of our best friends. And being three 24-year-old women with office jobs, we had been G-chatting about it. At the airport that day nearly 13 years ago, introductions were made. Texts were sent to Kate, and more G-chats were chattered. However, I regret to report that there was nary a hint of romance in the interaction. There was not a spark. There was not a lingering crush. There was not a thought that passed through either of our brains that we’d play any significant role in the other’s life. But I did think he was cute, and we did become Facebook friends. (Again…. 2012.)

Seven years passed. We saw each other two or three times in passing. Adam left New York City and returned. We both dated other people.

In late 2018, I went through a particularly brutal breakup. It wasn’t that I believed with such unwavering conviction that the guy I had been dating, we’ll call him Oz, was my guy – it was too early to know. But the truth is that I had felt a near-ecstatic relief when I thought he might be. After nearly a decade of dating in New York City, I was exhausted by it all: the endless dates, the endless small talk, the endless cycle of rejecting and being rejected and starting all over again. When something is almost the right thing, and then turns out to be spectacularly wrong, it can knock you off your axis.

So for four months, I swore off dating altogether. I moved my body a lot; I cried a lot (to both friends and my therapist); I got on antidepressants for the first time in my life. And when I was finally ready to dip my toes back into the dating abyss, I only re-downloaded one dating app: Hinge.

In mid-March of 2019 – the very week I was going wedding dress shopping with Laura, the friend who I had been in Puerto Rico with seven years prior – my phone buzzed. I had a new message on Hinge, from Adam. “Fancy seeing you here,” he wrote. It was a delight to see a familiar face on the app. I scrolled through his profile, looking at a photo of him smiling with his beautiful sisters, and another of him traveling with friends in Cuba. I didn’t know whether I would connect with Adam romantically, but did know that I had some distant social ties to this person. (And I knew I liked his face.) It all felt easy in a way I wasn’t used to.

Adam and I met up a few evenings later, at a downtown restaurant near his apartment and my office. We sat at the bar and ordered light bites. The conversation flowed easily. We talked about our lives and our mutual friends and our politics. We both confessed some shock that the date was going so well.

More dates followed, and the knot of anxiety that always sat steady in my stomach during the initial stages of dating began to loosen. I began to feel safe in this thing – this relationship – in a way I never had before. By the first signs of summer, we had both deleted Hinge.

So we met cute. And then, much more impactfully, we met less cute. It was the second of these meetings that facilitated the wonderful life we’ve built since.

And reader, I married him. (Or at least I will in a few short weeks.) I still love a great love story, in all of its cinematic glory. But I’ve expanded my view of what one looks like. It can be cute, sure. But being real is so much better.

*Sponsored mention. All opinions are my own and Rich Text is not affiliated with any of the other mentioned parties.

---

If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!

Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription