This past summer, my partner of four years proposed to me. We were vacationing in Cefalù, Sicily. After a day of swimming at the beach, he took me up to a beautiful lookout point before popping the question.
Obviously, I said yes. Our wedding is set for December of 2026, and I couldn’t be more excited.
I’d known for a long time – honestly, quite early in our relationship – that I wanted to marry him. For several years before our engagement, we had been speaking openly about our plans to marry. We knew we were the real deal.
But if you’d asked me right before we met, when I was 19, if I was likely to start dating my future husband soon, I would have said not a chance. I knew I wanted to be in a long-term relationship, but it just didn’t seem like finding my person at that age was a realistic (or socially encouraged) possibility.
In hindsight, while our meeting wasn’t inevitable, I took some steps to put myself in the right position for being open to love when it came knocking on my door. Read on to learn a bit about what worked for me in my dating life. Maybe it will work for you, too.
I Was Clear on What I Wanted
I always knew I wanted to be in love and to get married. I’m glad I dated different people in high school and early in college, but I was never the type of person who wanted casual flings or who saw relationships as tying me down.
Shortly before my fiancé and I started dating, I decided it was time to be intentional about finding a serious partner. It wasn’t that I felt like I needed a boyfriend or that I was running out of time (as I said, I was 19). But I wanted one.
And for me, having a partner to love and support me through the difficulties of young adulthood would be a positive, not a hindrance.
I Dated Online and Offline
So, I started going on dates, primarily with guys I met on Hinge. I also went out with a few guys I met at my college. They were fine.
Then, my old roommate’s childhood friend from Gainesville, Florida, came to visit us in Atlanta. We hit it off. Nothing really happened, though. That is, until I went to visit my roommate’s hometown a few months later, and her same friend was there.
We started texting all day, every day, and the rest is history!
I Ignored Age Stereotypes & Peer Pressure
At the time, I felt a bit of social pressure – especially for my female friends and me – to not be looking for anything serious, even if that was what we wanted.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to stay single, but if you want to be in a relationship, you should be able to pursue that wholeheartedly.
If I hadn’t been honest with myself about what I wanted, I never would have been open to dating someone who didn’t live in my city. That would’ve seemed like too much work.
But I knew I had a strong connection, and I wanted to be around him as much as I could. From the jump, he made me feel happy, and there was such peace within our relationship. I didn’t know what would come of it, but I knew dating him was worth a try.
I Embraced Long Distance
When we started dating, it felt kind of crazy to begin a long-distance relationship. Long-distance relationships were something that happened to already-existing couples if someone got a new job or studied abroad.
I’d only ever heard of people starting long-distance relationships with friends from online, and I didn’t spend much time on the internet!
But funny enough, I’m so glad our relationship started the way it did. Gainesville and Atlanta are about a five-hour drive apart, so one of us would usually make the trek to see the other every six weeks or so.
I Put in the Effort & Communicated My Needs
When we were apart, we had a pretty constant text conversation going, and we FaceTimed most nights.
We really got to know each other on FaceTime, which meant we had a lot of quality conversation during the time that we might have just been silently watching movies or doing errands IRL.
Long-distance also meant that we were able to maintain some of our independence during that first year of our relationship.
I was super busy in school — I graduated in three years while working 30 hours a week for a good chunk of it – so it would’ve been hard to keep up all my responsibilities while living in the same city with a boyfriend.
By the time we lived in the same place, we were already secure enough in our relationship that if one of us had to work late or go do something on our own, it wasn’t a big deal.
I Decided to Commit
We had to decide pretty quickly to take the relationship seriously because it was long-distance. If that sounds counterintuitive, let me explain.
When you start dating someone in your own city, it can be easy to see them once or twice a week without knowing if you see it lasting or even knowing if you’re exclusive. All of my single (or sort of single) friends have situationship horror stories.
It’s easy to just keep dating someone because they’re there, and it’s low stakes.
But with a long-distance relationship, you have to decide pretty quickly if it’s worth the immense amount of effort it takes to drive 10 hours round-trip to see someone and to keep talking to them without the regular physical closeness you get in a short-distance relationship.
If one of us felt like we weren’t getting enough attention – or maybe that we had a busy week and would be less available to call – we had to have a direct conversation about our needs and work together to make sure we both felt supported and at ease.
It set a great foundation for what was to come.
For Love That Lasts, Take the Leap
I graduated from college a year earlier than my fiancé, and right after I packed up my apartment, I moved in with him in Gainesville. I was sort of nervous about the move.
Not only were we taking a huge step, but I was moving to a smaller city and looking for a job (though I soon found one I loved).
For us, moving in together was a great decision. Because we’d had to stay with each other so much when we were visiting, we already had a pretty solid sense that we lived well together. Still, signing a lease together is a big jump.
But we had a wonderful time decorating our house, making dinner together, and hanging out on our porch each night. When I was accepted into grad school, we moved to New Orleans, and we continue to love living together.
There’s no need to rush moving in together. And for some couples, moving for one person’s work or school can complicate the power dynamic, especially in straight couples.
But long-term partnerships require a bit of faith that you’re both willing to sacrifice or take the leap for the other. I moved to be with my fiancé; he later moved to be with me.
I’m so glad that my fiancé and I found each other and that we were both brave enough to put in the effort to make our relationship work. And I can’t wait to see what adventures wait for us next!
