How it all started…

Jennifer’s Version

I was doing what so many people do these days, cycling through far too many dating apps after getting out of a relationship and trying to convince myself that this whole process wasn't completely awful. I had been through the wringer so many times that every person I matched with & was vibing with would eventually get asked to do a video call. I could tell in about two minutes whether I wanted to carve out time, put on real pants, and travel across boroughs and subways to meet them.

Brian and I matched. We had a perfectly pleasant conversation that transitioned into a video chat. It was... honestly pretty unremarkable. We threw around the idea of going on a date, but he was “traveling,” I was sorting through feelings from my breakup, and somewhere along the way, the whole thing fizzled out, as so many of these matches organically do.

Then, about a month later, I saw him on an entirely different dating app and remember thinking, "Is it even worth swiping on this guy again?" But curiosity got the best of me, and I wondered whether he swiped back, and voilà, we matched again. We had another perfectly pleasant, equally unremarkable conversation through the app, and this time he asked me when we were actually going on this date. Life was busy. I was busy. Dating felt exhausting. I didn’t exactly commit. Eventually, he was persistent enough that I finally thought, "Okay... fine."

Now, in the middle of all of this, a friend invited me to a Jewish single-women's night, and there happened to be a matchmaker there. In a side conversation, she was talking to some of us about dating and made this point that so many of us eliminate people who are actually really good for us in the dating ecosystem because we've been taught to chase immediate chemistry, butterflies, excitement, and all the things movies tell us love is supposed to feel like. She then said something that I thought was absolutely bananas: that if there isn't a definitive reason to say no, and as long as things are 70% fine, you should keep dating them until you actually know either way. Seventy percent! I remember internally spiraling over this. Seventy percent is barely a C. How is seventy percent the benchmark for choosing the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with? But... something about it stuck.

So we went on our first date. It honestly felt more like an interview. That too was perfectly pleasant. We had a perfectly pleasant conversation. I walked him to the subway because he'd come all the way out to Brooklyn. He didn't try to kiss me. There weren't fireworks. There weren't butterflies. There really wasn't much of anything. Then he casually mentioned he was leaving for Uganda to go gorilla trekking and that he'd reach out when he got back. I remember thinking, "That's certainly the most creative excuse I've ever heard for never texting someone again." Except then... he actually texted me while he was still in Uganda, and we planned our second date for basically the day he got home after an eighteen-hour flight. We went shuffleboarding and again... it was pleasant. Again... nothing particularly remarkable happened. At the end of the night, he asked if he could kiss me, which somehow made the whole thing even more awkward, and I remember thinking, "70%."

We went on a date to Ras (my favorite Ethiopian restaurant) the night before I left for Hawaii with my dear friend Bryan (yes, Bryan with a Y). Pleasant, again. I invited him back to my apartment to keep me company while I packed (last-minute) for my trip. And then we sat on my couch and talked for hours.

Something shifted. I remember thinking there was so much more depth to him than I'd been seeing on these dates. Looking back now, knowing Brian, that makes complete sense because social situations are not exactly his favorite, but put him in a quiet room talking one-on-one until three in the morning, and suddenly there's this incredibly thoughtful, curious, emotionally intelligent person sitting across from you.

While I was in Hawaii, we voice-noted multiple times daily. So constantly that Bryan with a Y basically became part of our conversations, too. And over the next few months, even while I continued dating other people, Brian stayed patient. He planned things before I had to think about them. He followed through on everything he said he would do. He consistently found little ways to make my very chaotic life easier instead of adding to it. We'd have difficult conversations about important things incredibly early on, and every single time he listened, reflected, and genuinely wanted to grow. Nobody had really shown up for me in those ways before, and somewhere along the line, I realized that what I had originally mistaken for "boring" was actually consistency. It was steadiness. It was someone who made me feel calmer instead of more anxious. It turns out those butterflies I always thought I was supposed to chase weren't actually the thing I was looking for. And here we are!

I still laugh thinking about that matchmaker and her ridiculous 70% rule. I don't know her name, and she'll probably never know this story, but I genuinely don't think we'd be here if she hadn't challenged the way I thought about dating. Thankfully, I listened just long enough for 70% to become 100%.