Helen and Tan's story begins as any modern 21st century love story begins- with a connection made on a mobile dating and messaging app ("the Internet", as Tan likes to say). When they met, Helen was a jet-setting technology consultant, and Tan was an internal medicine resident. Both had precious little free time, and both felt very comfortable outsourcing their dating lives to the most popular online dating platforms available.

Helen found Tan to be very charming and witty online, and agreed to meet with him over brunch in a Manhattan, NY restaurant. Tan was so impressed that Helen looked as beautiful in person as she did in her online profile. Both of them quickly found common ground: they were life-long avid book readers who happened to be very well-traveled. Helen grew up in Taipei before living in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Seattle, and Philadelphia. Tan grew up in Orange County, California before living in Vietnam, Guatemala, and Uganda.

Helen and Tan quickly settled into a rhythm and commitment to see each other as often as they could in between business trips and hospital shifts. They even planned a trip to tour Central Asia together. Tan would later reflect that this two-week trip through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan was the culmination point in which he realized he found his life-long partner. Six months later, Tan proposed to Helen in a quiet tea house in the hills of southern Taipei.

Helen and Tan now live in Northern California, where Helen is a product manager and Tan is a practicing physician. They continue to share their love of reading through Helen's online start-up The Busy Reader.

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