SARAH: My entire adult life, I never lived in any one place longer than 3 years.

With every move, I tested out different dating apps making my way through most of them: eHarmony, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Coffee Meets Bagel, Facebook Dating. With every date, my standards lowered a bit further as I sat through meet after meeting with men who were unable to hold conversation, lacking the basic ability to ask questions and really hear the answer, and who were more interested in themselves than in finding a partner to share life with. I became more aware of how much I hated having to sell myself on a profile and meet up with a total stranger that had also curated his own profile. After so many years of this, I gave up on the idea of marriage altogether as I could not fathom finding anyone with whom a shared life would be preferable to the single life which had become so familiar to me. (A fact I shared with Marcus when we first began commiserating over the bleakness of the dating world.) I hated putting myself out there and longed to meet someone organically. (I always enjoyed romance novels with the friends-to-lovers trope.)

In 2019, after finishing seminary, I relocated to Philadelphia after I accepted a job as a Pre-K teacher at a daycare center. I was already dating a guy that lived in Philly at the time – a relationship that I never really saw going anywhere – and shortly after I found a home in South Philly, we broke up.

I was feeling so disconnected as I had not made many friends in Philly and I had just begun attending a church called Circle of Hope, when COVID precautions shut everything down. Once things started to open up again, I went back to the South Philly location of Circle of Hope and learned that this church was actually 4 separate congregations that met in different areas around Philly.

And then came Marcus. I first met him on the doorstep of the house I shared with another teacher. Marcus showed up in response to a text sent for moving help. My roommate was moving out and she was busy so I answered the door. I remember noticing how handsome and friendly he was as I let him in, got him some water, and left to go for a walk.

Later on, I found out that we went to the same church! I hadn’t been to a service in a while because most of our meetings were in the evenings, including Sundays and weekdays in smaller groups we called “cells.” It made showing up on a regular basis pretty difficult, especially during the school year, because I had to be in bed by a decent time. I was feeling disconnected from the church during that time. But…let’s just say after meeting Marcus, I suddenly had an excuse to show up more often ;)

MARCUS: To be honest – this is going to sound bad – but I hardly noticed Sarah at church. I was also a little bit reserved back then, and I had a lot of things on my mind. Between feeling homesick after moving from New Jersey to Philadelphia, and trying to make new friends, I was out of my comfort zone. Then there was dating. I was using OkCupid, Tinder for about five minutes – I never even chose a profile picture – and then Bumble. I was a hopeful romantic back then (for people who know me best) and with that came a lot of disappointments. ‘Ghosting’ might have been the worst thing, but most people I dated weren’t all that intellectually stimulating either. I was also meeting women who weren’t interested in a serious relationship; at minimum, all I wanted was companionship. I also began developing a nihilistic viewpoint of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd shortly thereafter. When it came to relationships or the prospect of getting married, needless to say, I had given up altogether.

But, I remembered some advice that my mom gave me back then: to find other people that might be going through a similar thing. That’s when I joined our church in South Philly, and became a part of a weekly cell meeting that Sarah agreed to house at her house. Initially, I couldn’t remember who she was until we did a Zoom call to meet and greet, and then it hit me, ‘Oh, Sarah’s the girl with red hair and green glasses!’ (I vaguely remembered her green glasses for some reason). And then I thought, ‘She seems really nice – and pretty.’ So I decided to join.

The thing I remember most about our first in-person meeting was the fact that Sarah had a cat. I didn’t like cats at all. Sarah’s cat frequently would get these “zoomies” (cat owners speak for those who don’t know), and it sounds exactly like it is. He would run around, hide underneath anything I’d sit on, and scratch incessantly – at least it felt like it. And Sarah said her cat was named “Winston,” which by coincidence was my first dog’s name. In retrospect, sometimes I wonder if that was the first sign lol.

SARAH: It didn’t take long for Winston to win Marcus over and vice versa, especially as I had Marcus give Winston treats every time he came over. With each week’s cell meeting, we learned more about each other and our struggles with dating. I shared that I felt disconnected and he invited me to a few different trivia nights that I was not able to make due to the aforementioned teacher’s bedtime. Finally, I was able to make it to a trivia night that he said his friends were coming to but by the time I arrived, I found out that not only could his friends not make it that night but the trivia night had been canceled.

MARCUS: I swear – I didn’t know that trivia night had been canceled until I actually showed up! But, you can imagine how convenient it probably looked. Nonetheless, I asked Sarah if she wanted to migrate to another bar nearby, and I was pretty lucky that she obliged. Honestly, spending time with her that night was the most fun I had in a while. Up until that point, I couldn’t remember the last time that I had laughed so much. Sarah had such a great sense of humor, and a really funny laugh, but I was more impressed that she tolerated my endless dad jokes. Time seemed to be a blur that night. We must have talked for about two hours, until we finally ended up at Tattooed Mom’s on South Street; one of my favorite places to hang. I’ll never forget it because it was $2 pierogi night, and Sarah ordered a cocktail that was infused with actual cotton candy – I still have some order envy. The bar we sat at had these cute toys and fidgets for people to handle. One of them was a plastic diamond ring, and before we closed our tab, I handed it to her as a gag. We both got a good laugh.

(Here’s a side note: I found out later that she had held onto that ring. Call it foreshadowing lol).

In some ways, the feelings I had that night felt familiar: a fun night, a lot of laughs, but waiting for some sort of shoe to drop. Whether Sarah was going to ghost me, or she’d place me into an awkward friend zone. I wanted to believe that this was different, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. That’s when a month later, I went to my best friend’s birthday party. We had drinks and caught up about how our lives were going. I remember telling her that I met a girl recently, and she seemed to be quite level headed. I lamented about how difficult dating had been for months, and it seemed like I’d never find “the one.” Then came an epiphany. She explained how friends are supposed to have their friends’ back, and if I really wanted to know if someone was right, bring her around my friends. And that’s what I did.

SARAH: As I walked to meet up with Marcus and his friends at South Philly Tap Room, I had this familiar nervous feeling. We had been texting frequently and there had been some serious flirting but I remember convincing myself that it had to be one-sided. I knew I was interested in him but it felt too good to be true for him to feel the same way about me. When I got there and his friends joined, which turned out to be two couples, I started to get the feeling that this was a kind of test (not Marcus playing games but friends who wanted to check me out). Conversation was pretty easy, except for the times where it segued into sports talk, I thought my brother and brother-in-law would love this guy. I noticed that as the night went on, his seat was getting closer to me and our arms grazing as we sat at the table. When he mentioned that he enjoyed the band Chicago, I thought boy my dad would love this guy. By the end of the night, I felt cautiously hopeful that this was not one-sided.

MARCUS: We went on a couple dates after that. Weeks went by, and before I knew it, we had been dating for several months. It was not long after that that I met Sarah’s brother and his family, and we became committed to each other for a long-term relationship. And I remember – sometime around the month of September – Sarah asked me how I felt about going to Michigan to meet her family over Christmas. I was a little taken aback; a little nervous, too. I wanted to make a good impression, so I decided to go. We ended up driving out, and Sarah met my family at our Christmas dinner along the drive. I had never introduced my family to someone I was dating until then. We spent an amazing Christmas out in Grand Rapids. What stuck out to me most was the thought of, ‘If I could pick an extended family, this would be the one.’ :)