We first met trawling the dating apps (thanks Hinge!) and chatted over messenger while Christiana slogged through her PhD qualifying exams. Zach was patient; sending the occasional spitball to see if Christiana was still among the sane and/or living. Christiana remembers these pings fondly as some of the few rays of sunshine warming her otherwise bleak days. Fast forward 4 weeks and we were finally ready to meet. With her interest piqued, and her calendar empty, Christiana looked up Zach's address and was shocked to find that his place was all the way in Long Beach. Christiana hadn't lived in LA very long and was woefully uninformed when it came to the local geography. That fact, combined with Hinge's default 25 mile matching radius meant that Zach's native Bixby Knolls juuuust snuck in under the wire at 23 miles. (those of you familiar with driving in LA know that this qualifies as a long distance relationship). She decided to go for it anyway-- he did seem to have a bit of goofy charm, after all. So we met up at Beachwood Brewery in Long Beach (Christiana made a pit stop on her way down to San Diego for Thanksgiving) and had a sweet, sarcastic, engaging, quippy, insufferably nerdy, giggle-filled evening... and the rest is history!