‘Finally’

I met my now boyfriend the week before we went in to official lockdown. I had been single for nearly 4 years and had all but given up on dating... those 4 years had consisted of constant self esteem knocks, let downs, ghosting!! You name it. I had removed all dating apps and just accepted maybe I was supposed to be on my own as no one person had this much bad luck with dating... surely? I have a few friends who have met their significant other online & I also watched a colleague's blossoming love story with her now boyfriend through Tinder & all of their dates and we got talking and turns out prior to meeting him she had had a very similar dating history to me. So I went home one night after work and I just thought there are some wonderful success stories out there, maybe I’ll give it one last ditch attempt…. Enter D. I came across him that same night I had downloaded Tinder & we matched the next morning and instantly hit it off, there was banter and flowing conversation from the first message. We got to talking about how we had ended up online and weirdly he had also been single for the same amount of time, had the same rubbish dating experiences (albeit far less!) and wasn't sure about the whole online dating world... so he had also downloaded Tinder - out of curiosity - the DAY BEFORE. The day we matched & were messaging in work, was the last day I was in the office (though I didn’t know that at the time) and I haven't been back in to the office since. So it turns out, if we hadn't both been in work that day (our distance ranges weren't far from one anothers offices), and hadn't both downloaded Tinder 24hrs before we may never of come across one another. The downside to this was as we went into official lockdown it meant we couldn't meet up/go on dates so the next 3 months was constant face times, texting, voice notes and the like, which we have both agreed turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In a 'normal' dating world you would maybe message for a week or so and go on a date... but we had no choice but to REALLY get to know one another as we had to keep up virtual communication and it gave us the time to find things out about one another and ask questions that maybe we wouldn't of known until much further down the line, which isn't a bad thing! It just means we really had the time to get to know one another inside out. Within 2 weeks we had both deleted the app and was just focusing on one another (from the day we matched neither of us had spoken to anyone else anyway!) I knew I had really strong feelings for him really quickly.. which is crazy because how could I feel this way about someone I had technically never met?! And he felt the same. When the lockdown restrictions were eased slightly and you could meet another household outside at a distance I drove over to his and we went for a socially distanced walk along the river and just spoke for hours, as soon as I laid eyes on him in person I thought 'finally' and all the built up nerves and worries melted away, it felt like we had known one another for years - not that we had never met before. I came home from that date feeling so certain that this was my person and this was all meant to be.. how it happened and the time it had taken. When we could mix households (he lives on his own) I started staying there pretty much every weekend and then even working from home together during the week and have never looked back, we have had a week away 'staycation' for his birthday and are hopefully having a week abroad next month if all goes to plan. I am so grateful I have been lucky enough to get something amazing out of this situation, and what a great story to tell of how we met and the start of our relationship not being the norm.