Alex and I are a Hinge success story, meeting on the app in 2021. He was drawn to my Darla from Finding Nemo halloween costume; I was drawn to the puppy.

We didn't take ourselves too seriously — when we matched, I tried to impress him with transit and map puns, and he countered with Shakespeare. 

Being in the thick of Covid, our first date was a masked walk around Lake Merritt, six feet apart. Alex's favorite line is that "it didn't end six feet apart!" And honestly, we never let go of the closeness we found during those strange, small months — podded together in our Oakland apartments.

While I finished grad school in San Francisco, life eventually took Alex east to Philadelphia for his own grad program. I followed shortly after, and we spent several years in what is now one of our favorite cities.