how nina met ian

a hinge love story

the other day i was on a zoom call for work, it was a monday at 3pm which is arguably the darkest time of the week. out of habitual pleasantry i asked how everyone’s weekend was, someone replied “it was great, i went on a date on friday… he is now officially my boyfriend” this immediately perked me up almost as if her giddiness was transferred through my clunky corporate thinkpad. i replied, “THAT IS SO EXCITING !!!!!!!!!!! oh my god, what a way to start the week!" she laughed at my enthusiasm and it set the tone for a great meeting. i give this example to say, i love other people’s love. many are surprised when i tell them that valentine’s day is one of my favorite holidays that i look forward to all year round. while some see it as capitalism disguised in sheep's clothing holding out a box of chocolates, i see it as a bright and shiny day intentionally planted in the dead of winter where we get to celebrate love of all kinds.

when hinge asked if i would be interested in interviewing and writing a couple’s love story i was sitting at my desk wearing a giant red satin bow tied in my rosy pink hair, i immediately answered “YES!!!!!!!” without even flinching because as i said, i love other people’s love in all it’s intricate, glutinous, unwavering, messy shapes. this is nina and ian’s love story, it is beautiful and fizzy and blisteringly optimistic. it will surely melt the heart of any valentine’s day cynic. ENJOY!

thank you to hinge for sponsoring angel cake this week, introducing me to nina and ian, and letting me tell this story <3

nina was turning 25, she was deeply single and admittedly feeling kind of weird about it. she decided to invite all of her very best friends to her parents’ beach house at the jersey shore to celebrate her birthday. the weekend was filled with so much laughter and salty sea air it felt like she could almost float away into the sky alongside those airplanes that fly advertisements for tomato sauce and off-brand sunscreen. on the last night of the weekend the girls decided as an act of earnest silliness to cast a love spell to set the tone for the year ahead. derived from a bout of birthday self-reflection, nina was looking to make amends to her icy and closed off approach to dating and set a fresh intention as a newly minted 25 year old. together they gathered dried lavender and rosemary twigs and petals from the garden and shells from the beach and honey for symbolic sweetness and placed them into a jar, the colorful fragrance making each other feel dizzy as they cast their spells and sealed their vessels. the entire activity was meant for the girls to embrace the magical giddy hopefulness that somehow forms among groups of women. after the jars were put away, they all went to sleep feeling the comfortable weight of each other’s presence throughout the house. 

the next morning nina rolled over and opened her hinge app, as she was scrolling she stopped to click on the little purple notification at the bottom of her screen, her heart beat subtly as she saw that she matched with this guy who looked sooooo cute in a photo holding three puppies with a caption that read “what a bountiful harvest” which made her audibly laugh out loud (rare!). nina smiled and slipped her phone in her pocket, slightly delirious from that tiny spark of what could be. 

a few months later, nina was on her couch watching the bachelor, engulfed in scenes of beautiful women with mascara stained tears rolling down their faces retching at the animalistic need for love. naturally, nina reached for her phone and redownloaded hinge after a few months of just simply being too busy to pay any attention to it. to her surprise her hinge crush ian from months ago who had that photo with puppies randomly messaged her less an hour before despite their match expiring months ago. stunned by the coincidence she messaged him back immediately, he had replied to one of her prompts that read “i am looking for: someone to do my dishes” (she loathes doing dishes). ian replied “i’ll do your dishes” he felt compelled to message after all this time because he was attracted to her bluntness. nina was surprised because no one had ever replied to that prompt before. she scrolled his profile again and remembered that he had a video of him bowling a strike (hot) and a photo of a chair he made by hand (again, hot). they rapid fire exchanged messages almost as if talking to each other melted the unspoken disillusionment we all feel when the temperature drops below 30 degrees in new york. immediately, they had a date. 

normally before a date nina would be overcome with nerves, but the week leading up to her dinner with ian she felt a strange wave of calm excitement. the night of their date was gross and raining and cold. she walked up montrose ave and looked across the street to see ian waiting for her, holding an umbrella illuminated by the yellow glow of streetlamps as if they were intentionally placed there to cast him in the warm romantic hue. he waved to her and she thought to herself, “aw, there he is.” the restaurant they had planned to go to had an hour-long wait, the infamous peril of a first date, but nina effortlessly pivoted to a plan b, her ease and comfortability with the change noticeably relaxed ian. they managed to get a table down the street at marcela’s in williamsburg and immediately started talking and didn’t stop for hours as if it was the easiest thing in the world (and it kind of was). nina kept looking at the way his curly brown hair flopped around perfectly and ian kept noticing her baby blue eyes and the little crinkles that form when she smiles (which was often). they discovered that they grew up in the same town 10 minutes away from each other and they both had traditions of picking out their family christmas trees at stew leonard’s in connecticut (if you know you know). an unspoken feeling of romantic serendipity hung over them marveling that they could have existed on parallel tracks without ever meeting before. the similarities kept spilling out of each other as they talked about their families and very best friends and everything else that exists in-between. ian felt himself perpetually smiling at her enthusiasm for everything, and nina felt herself laughing so hard she snorted out her drink because somehow they both have the humor of a teenage boy.

they left the restaurant submerged by foggy street and giddily stumbled back to nina’s apartment to conduct an experiment. on his hinge profile ian noted that he was 5’11, nina had a theory that all boys who have 5’11 on their profile are at least 2 inches shorter than that because who wouldn’t round up..? (hey so, this is real… boys stop doing this) she brought out a measuring tape and found that he was 5 feet 11 inches exactly, a shining testament to his self-effacing honesty. ian felt nina’s joy fill the room as she was fumbling around with the tape and he realized that he wanted to be the person who makes her feel as much joy as possible at all times. 

two years later, ian is still doing nina’s dishes <3

there is this one meditation i listen to a lot on spotify (i feel every buddhist monk’s eyes rolling) where the speaker whispers in a soft tone, “you are here to have the most healthy, beautiful, radiant experience in the earthly realm“ despite the slightly cringey woo-wooness, i genuinely think about this every single day. everything we do should be done in the spirit of living the most radiant life possible overflowing with awe that such beauty exists. the second i met nina i knew that this was how she approached her life and her appreciation for joy is consequently dripping from her relationship. i hope you felt tangentially as melty reading this as i did writing it. everything is romantic! 

watch hinge’s new campaign “It’s Funny We Met on Hinge” here.

thank you for reading!!! happy valentine’s day!!!!

Sponsored mention. All opinions are my own and angel cake is not affiliated with any of the other mentioned parties.