Andy & Elaine

Elaine is originally from Taiwan and came to the US in 2015 to pursue her master’s degree. She later found her passion in hospitality and HR, which was how she got into the hotel industry and started working in Operations and HR simultaneously. However, due to crazy hours and busy schedules for these types of work, she could only focus on her job and forget how to find love in her life. Finally, she realized that she needed to make a change, and in the end, she did, which placed her in a better place and quality of life. Since Elaine is such a people person, she committed herself to become a solid HR in her favorite hotel industry. She could finally serve employees that she truly enjoyed working with.

On the other hand, Andy was born in New York City, moved to Boston, and lived a third of his life in Amherst, a town in Massachusetts where he graduated from college in 2011. He landed a job right after he graduated and worked there for years as an IT and software engineer. Because the job was so easy, he realized that he was stuck in a very comfortable zone, but he also realized that the longer he stayed at his company, the more his skillset would fall behind since he was not learning anything new. Finding love there was also hard since he was getting older while everyone was getting younger. Eventually, he found a new opportunity and moved back to Boston. At the same time, he was able to form a dance group with his friends, where dance and music helped him relieve stress from his new fast-paced job.

While Elaine and Andy focused on their careers, neither attempted to find love as their priority. Later the pandemic hit, and it made it even harder to meet people. One way to meet potential lovers is through dating apps. Elaine never liked using them, but her friends pushed her to try Coffee Meets Bagel, so in the end, she created a profile there. Andy used a few in the past and never had any luck with them and thought they were a waste of time. He preferred meeting people naturally, but with his parents constantly nagging him about when he will find a wife, he decided to give dating apps another chance. He also created a Coffee Meets Bagel profile.

At the beginning of 2021, a notification popped up on Andy’s phone indicating that he was matched on the app. Immediately he messaged back, and both started chatting right away. Unfortunately, due to their busy work schedules, it was hard for them to even get a chance to meet up in person and have a date. Despite this, they still chat but gradually became infrequent. Exactly three months later, Andy sent a couple of texts and foodie pictures to Elaine but never received any response. With no responses for weeks, instead of assuming he was ghosted, he thought she was just busy with life and clung to the hope that she’ll respond in the future.

A few months later, while Elaine was walking to the bank in Allston, she walked past a Korean BBQ restaurant, GopChang Story, where it reminded her of Andy of the time they chatted about food and about this particular location. Upon checking her texts, she was surprised that she didn’t reply back to him for more than two months, so she finally replied back. At that moment, Andy rode the train to visit his friends while eating his chicken nuggets and fries. When he checked his incoming notifications, his jaw dropped that she actually responded back! And so he stopped eating his tasty nuggets and replied back immediately. If it wasn’t for that moment when Elaine walked past that restaurant, they could’ve remained strangers indefinitely, but thankfully there were reconnected!

They caught up, and about a month later, they finally met in person and went on a date for some seafood and drinks over at Boston Seaport. It went perfectly. Over the next few weeks, they went on several dates, long long (like 30,000+ steps long) walks, and even went out whether it was raining or shining. Andy already knew his feelings for her were growing strong and wanted to ask her out soon, but because he took such baby steps and didn’t ask her out after multiple dates, Elaine was confused about his true intentions. He actually wanted to ask sooner but didn’t want to rush it and not make her think that this was a fling. Eventually, about two months later, he finally manned up from being a baby and asked her out to make it official. A new chapter was born.

Fast forward a few months of dating each other, and even with ups and downs, Andy knew that she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He originally wanted to propose at the one-year mark when they had their first date. But just a week before that, Elaine and Andy traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to have a “fake bachelor party” to relieve stress from their day-to-day jobs. Andy also knew that Elaine once traveled to Nashville all by herself a year ago, where she was contemplating her life and career and left the city feeling sad. So Andy was in a dilemma on whether to propose in an unfamiliar city with no help from his close friends to help him set up the surprise proposal or to play the safe card and propose in Boston on the anniversary of the day they first met.

Ultimately, Andy really wanted to erase Elaine’s sad memories of Nashville with a happy one, so on that very special day, Andy planned a hiking trip to the waterfalls and brought his tripod to record the moment. When they arrived at the end of the trail with the waterfall in sight, Andy set up his tripod and positioned themselves for a picture with a timer to make things less suspicious. Little did she know he was actually recording a video, and as he counted down the timer, he secretly pulled out the ring box from his sling bag and presented the engagement ring to her. From that moment, he kneeled down and popped out the question. She said YES! Unfortunately, the tripod fell over due to the stream of water pushing the tripod’s legs and barely recorded the moment, but in the end, everything worked out. She now left Nashville with happy memories.