FROM THE BRIDE //  Brandon and I surprisingly did not cross paths until we both swiped right on Tinder New Year’s Day 2014, but weirdly enough we were always within 5 miles of each other.

We went to neighboring high schools literally 3 miles apart. I went to Cuesta in San Luis Obispo my freshman year of college and Brandon was at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo that same year for his sophomore year of college. His little brother in his fraternity was one of my good friends from high school. My brother’s roommate (also at Cal Poly that same year) was one of Brandon’s fraternity brothers and he spent quite a bit of time at my brother’s apartment, which I had lived 2 doors down from. We attended the same parties, both went to the same concerts, knew a ton of the same people, and yet never met each other.

I had joined Tinder late December 2013 to write a book about all of the horrible blind dates I went on through the app, but I had never been on a blind date before. So I decided to pick the least creepy person with the most friends in common option for my first date (I didn’t want to think back in 50 years about my “first” blind date and have that memory be someone horrible!). Since Tinder was linked to Facebook, I knew Brandon and I had at least my brother in common, and that was enough for me (not to mention his killer cute smile).

So Bran ended up being my very first and my very last blind date. It was weird – since we had both grown up in the same area, we had so much in common and vibed instantaneously, almost like we had known each other forever. I think the cherry on top, though, was when I found out I had the same birthday as his Grandma. My mom had the same birthday as my dad’s grandma so that was it. I knew from then on out that he was my forever human. I never got to write my book, but I did find my favorite story.