Facebook is a minefield of potential ways to ruin a relationship. Between unknown girls posting on your S.O.’s wall or finding out an ex has quickly rebounded from their relationship status update, looking at the social network can sometimes put you in a world of pain. But there is a bright side! The access and connections the site offers also allows people a chance to find love in the places they least expected. Here are ten true tales of lucky individuals who had a Facebook friend turn into much more.
1. At sixteen years old, Sysay Tedros was happily living in Ethiopia with her large family and boyfriend Getu, whom she planned to marry. But war broke out, causing Sysay, her mother, and sister to flee to England without warning. Even after they were settled in the U.K., Sysay could get no concrete answer about Getu’s whereabouts. But she never forgot him. Ten years after leaving Ethopia, she started reconnecting with friends who also fled. Through these contacts, she found out that Getu was still alive and got his phone number. She called him almost immediately and was overjoyed to find he never stopped thinking about her either. Soon after, he moved to England and they got hitched.
2. The tale of two Kellys has become somewhat of a modern-day Mother Goose story. A woman named Kelly Hildebrandt searched her name on Facebook and was surprised to find a man sporting the same moniker. She messaged him about the coincidence and figured it would end there. Instead, the male Kelly found the message and its sender to be rather cute and responded. Flash forward fifteen months later, and the two are now engaged and saving money on address labels.
3. Nineties R&B singer Tyler Collins captured Alan Roger Currie’s heart from a young age, ever since he saw her music videos on TV. Currie figured the fascination would always stay a boyhood crush, until twenty years later he noticed Collins was a Facebook friend of one of his acquaintances. He decided to take a chance and send her a message. Collins happily responded and soon the messages became daily phone calls. Today, the couple is planning to end their long-distance relationship by moving in together by the end of the year. Just another reason for me to stalk Jake Gyllenhaal online.
4. Divorced author and New York Times contributor Walter Kirn found himself alone, bored, and depressed on Christmas Eve. He trolled through his Facebook friends and their friends, looking for another person who was also suffering through the holiday sans family. He discovered a fellow sad soul in a woman stranded at an airport for the evening after her flight was canceled. The two had never spoken to each other before, but their equally sad situation made them form a bond that eventually turned into a relationship. One year later, they spent the holiday together. I wondered if they tried inviting Mark Zuckerberg over to carve the turkey?
5. Elise Garger married the first boy she ever kissed, but went about it in a rather unusual way. The two shared their smooch at summer camp when they were both fifteen. But like Grease preaches, many summer loves end when it starts getting nippy. The books were closed on the young lovebirds until twenty-two years later, when Garber contacted her spit-swapping partner on Facebook. The decades between their last encounter didn’t affect the fire between the couple. After reconnecting on Facebook, they started doing some non-viral dating and married soon after. They’re like the Sandy and Danny of the 2000s ... sort of.
6. Kristin and Matt spent the first three months of their relationship 6,000 miles apart, but Facebook helped fill the gap. One of Kristin and Matt’s mutual friends suggested to Kristin that Matt would be a prefect match for her, but that they wouldn’t be able to met for months because he was stationed in Iraq. Kristin decided to not let the distance prevent her from getting to know Matt and sent him a Facebook message, which launched a series of notes and chats between the two that lasted the rest of Matt’s service. Shortly after he returned home, Matt and Kristin got engaged. They both changed their relationship status shortly after.
