The Right Swipe: Meet Nayda and Alex, a happily married couple that met on Tinder

Welcome to The Right Swipe, HelloGiggles’ celebration of lasting love that started with a swipe. Check back each month to meet a new couple that found love online—and remind yourself that dating apps don’t have to suck.

Meet Nayda and Alex. The couple live in Royal Oak, Michigan and met on Tinder about six years ago. When they matched, Nayda was in law school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Alex was living in Plymouth (about 20 minutes away). They tied the knot in 2016 and will celebrate their three-year wedding anniversary on October 29th. Here, they tell HG why they swiped right, how their relationship unfolded, and the advice they’d offer to anyone currently navigating the online dating field.

I swiped right because…

Nayda: I swiped right because of how cute Alex was and due in large part to his enigmatic smile. Bonus points: he was wearing scrubs in one of his pictures. I had no idea what he did for a living, but as a second-year law student who had grown weary of law school/law student dating prospects, the scrubs indicated that, at the very least, he was not a lawyer.

Alex: I swiped right because it was Tinder, so I obviously found Nayda attractive. Her pictures showed a silly/lighthearted personality, and she had a catchy tagline: “Law student by day, free spirit by night.”

On our first date we…

Nayda: After speaking on the phone and texting for a few weeks, we embarked on our first date. We went to dinner at this delicious and stylish bistro near Alex’s old condo called the Sardine Room. (I later came to find out that Alex took nearly every first date of his to this same location.) We had a delicious meal and great conversation and went back to his place afterwards to stretch the evening out for as long as possible.

On our first date I thought…

Alex: On our first date I thought that Nayda was different from everyone else I’d ever met. She was smart, quick, and witty. I loved that she kept me on my toes.

Nayda: On our first date I thought he was very cute and very much a gentleman. We had great conversation (including one heavy topic of “When is the last time you cried and why?”). Also, I was 99% sure that he was smarter than me (which I loved!). I also valued how humble Alex seemed, in spite of having every reason not to be.

I knew I wanted to be together…

Nayda: I knew I wanted to be together after Alex taught me how to ski in sub-zero temperatures in Northern Michigan after we had been dating for about four months. He was patient, affectionate, and his sense of humor during the whole weekend was both necessary and unyielding (particularly when I failed to implement the “pizza” stopping method and flew through an orange barricade in front of dozens of people). Little did I know that we would get engaged on a pier in that same area 18 months later.

Alex: I knew I wanted to be together about a month and a half into dating. Nayda went to visit her family in Florida for a week, and I really missed her the entire time. When I picked her up from the airport and saw her smiling face, I thought to myself  “Uh oh, I’m in trouble.”

We made our relationship official…

Nayda: Well we made it “official official” (for life) when we got married in 2016! But before that, we both identify the Polar Vortex of January 2014 as a turning point. Class was cancelled for me and most places were closed, so we had a lot of time together walking Alex’s dog through knee-deep snow, laughing hysterically at the absurdity of our freezing and snowy situation, and just really falling in love. We never really had a “DTR” conversation, though we remained very transparent about our evolving feelings in those first few months. Alex jokes that the relationship became official once we had both deleted Tinder.

I used a dating app because…

Alex: I used a dating app because it was the hot new thing at the time and way more convenient than emailing back and forth like on some dating sites. I was interested in meeting new people and enjoyed dating as a part of my social life at that time. I wasn’t really looking for anything serious but, as the saying goes, when you know you know. The rest is history.

Nayda: I used a dating app because, as a law student, there weren’t many opportunities to meet non-law students because I was both immersed in my studies and also really busy. I downloaded Tinder at the urging of a girlfriend and enjoyed its ease of use (nothing lazier than “looking for love” in your pajamas amirite?!). Also, I knew the reputation that Tinder had when it initially came onto the scene, and I wasn’t looking for anything serious so it seemed like a good fit. Spoiler alert: I fell in love with and married a guy from it. Whoops!

What advice would you give to someone who is using dating apps and looking for something real?

Nayda: This is tough because neither of us was looking for something “real” when we matched; it was kind of just a happy (and very surprising!) accident. Now, there are so many apps out there and presumably some have reputations for being more “casual sex” oriented and others for users who are, in theory, seeking something more serious. Alex and I were both seeking something casual, thus Tinder was a good match. Our advice would be to be realistic about what you can offer another person so as not to disappoint yourself or someone else, and also to make your expectations of the other person clear from the get-go. That all said, go in with an open mind! You never know when a casual swipe could turn into an amazing partnership.