Siren's Beacon that Pierced My Darkness
This fall felt pretty dark in all the ways things can get dark.
But one day, right in the middle of a particularly dark and dismal week, when things felt so stuck — stuck yet unstable, stuck without a real purpose, stuck and getting more stuck — I got an email with the heading “A Wedding Thanks to Siren.”
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Subject: A Wedding Thanks to Siren
Message: Hello, Ms. Lee
I thought you might like to know that my fiancée, Beth, and I will be married Saturday thanks to a relationship that started on Siren. We are forever grateful to you and your collaborators who created the app!
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This post totally pierced my specific darknesses on a particularly dark week; it reminded me that sometimes the things I endeavor to do had a real and positive impact on people.
The crazy part was that they were the only two people WITHIN 150 miles of each other. Yet, they found the connection; they found each other. And here are excerpts from their lovely post.
“At the urging of friends and family in January 2017, Beth decided to give a female-owned-and-operated online dating app, Siren, a try. No stranger to the online dating game, Beth found Siren to be both refreshing and easy to use. The app, with its focus on "Questions of the Day," and user-created questions (ranging from the silly to the serious) promoted conversation and interaction between users, which, for Beth, was a welcomed treat from the looks-based "Swipe Right or Swipe Left" of most competitor dating applications. Beth wasn't on the app more than a week before connecting with Scott….
Scott installed Siren in November of 2016, shortly after he purchased a new smart phone. He had read an online article about dating in the 21st century, particularly about technologies and phone applications that weren't demeaning, degrading, or obnoxious to women. Being new to the [area] (for graduate school), Scott decided to install the app with the hopes of meeting new people. He was immediately drawn to its question/answer format; he especially liked Siren's focus on showing a person's creativity and personality, and not merely on their physical attributes.
Scott and Beth connected via Siren chat in mid January, just a few days after Beth's birthday and a week into both of their new semesters. Interestingly, Scott and Beth were the only two people within a 150 mile radius of one another (if that's not meant to be, we don't know what is!). Scott answered all of Beth's Siren questions, noting especially a question about her education (Beth has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing) as both impressive and ambitious. These characteristics made Beth even more attractive to Scott, and he couldn't wait to ask her to a face-to-face meeting. Beth answered some--if not all--of Scott's questions and found them to be charming, witty, and interesting. Certainly, she thought, he must also be charming, witty, and interesting! She wasn't wrong.
Beth sent Scott the first message, and they began exchanging in-app messages to one another day in and day out. Soon, they exchanged phone numbers, and began texting and calling one another regularly. Scott found Beth's humor contagious, her positive and upbeat outlook on life in line with his, and her ability to understand and appreciate his jokes and pop culture references encouraging. Beth loved Scott's quick wit and dry sense of humor and his smarts; she also appreciated his calming and easy-going attitude and, most especially, his keen interest in getting to know her better.
February 3rd, 2017, Scott and Beth had their first date…The two spent nearly 9 hours together on that first date, first eating lunch, then talking more at a bakery across the street (where they ordered coffee and tea, and Beth gave Scott a homemade dark chocolate truffle), and finally to perusing a local bookstore. At the end of their date, Scott asked Beth what she was doing the following weekend ... and the rest, as they say, is history!”