It’s hard to remember a time before “swipe left” and “swipe right” were part of our lexicon. But that time did exist — about 10 years ago, to be exact.
Next month marks one decade since Tinder hit the App Store, offering users the chance to chase love, lust and anything in between from the comfort of their smartphones, with apps like Hinge and Bumble following in close succession. The lion’s share of dating apps are now owned by Dallas-based Match Group, which boasts nearly 100 million active users, according to a recent shareholder report. Tinder alone has produced more than 65 billion matches, according to its website, some of which have jumped off the screen into real-life romances.
In honor of a decade of dating apps, we found eight Dallas couples whose relationships show the power of one good swipe. We asked them about their virtual beginnings, how they sparked in-person connections and their thoughts on the next generation of matchmaking. Read on, lovebirds.
Once-over
Names: Schyler and Eric Barron
Location: Richardson
When they matched: June 2014
It was early in the dating app days when Schyler and Eric matched on Tinder, and especially early for Schyler — Eric was the first person she talked to on the app. “I love tall, dark and handsome,” she said. “He was so friendly, so easy to talk to, even through just the awkward app.”
The pair decided to meet up at Vickery Park for a first date. The only problem? Eric went to the (now-closed) location in Old East Dallas, and Schyler went to the Plano location. Once they realized their error, Eric zipped up U.S. 75. “The whole time I’m driving up there, I’m thinking, there’s no way she’s going to wait,″ said Eric. “Then I get out, I see her by the train tracks, and sparks flew.”
Even with the first-date mishap, Schyler didn’t feel the need for any more swiping. “I was pretty set. I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said. “He definitely seemed like husband material.”
They made plans for their second date while still at dinner, and soon, the couple was living together. They’re now married with two kids, 6-year-old Landry and 10-month-old Lennox. Even though dating apps were still somewhat stigmatized when they began their relationship — Schyler didn’t tell her parents how they met until the wedding — they wouldn’t have their love story any other way.
“We wouldn’t have met otherwise, and now we have two beautiful children and eight years together,” said Eric. “I’m very thankful for Tinder. I owe my life to Tinder.”
Pride and joy
Names: Veronica and Isabella Delgado
Location: Northwood Hills
When they matched: September 2018
Back home in Dallas after living in Los Angeles, Isabella decided try out Hinge. “I was 24 at that time, and had used dating apps before, and just thought I would put ‘interested in women and men,’” said Isabella, who had, up until that point, dated only men. “And I came across Veronica.”
Meanwhile, Veronica, who had dated women before, had been egged on by her friends to download Hinge. “As we started chit-chatting, she was quick and warm and interesting, and she really drew me in right away,” said Veronica. They bonded over their shared Christian faith and their close relationships with their families.
“After a few months we were living together, so it was it was a fairly quick escalation — which, my understanding is that happens a lot when you have two women who are dating each other,” said Isabella with a laugh. They wed at a small ceremony at Isabella’s parents’ home on Aug. 3, 2019, and hosted a larger wedding the following January at Veronica’s parents’ home.
“It was easy enough to put interested in both, and I was open to exploring that and I was also curious about it, and once I went on a date with Veronica and we progressed our relationship it was kind of a no-brainer,” said Isabella. “It was pretty seamless of a transition, and definitely the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The six-week itch
Names: Victoria and Alex Amador
Location: Lewisville
When they matched: March 2018
When Victoria and Alex met up for a date after matching on Tinder while living in Corpus Christi, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. “I actually thought initially that he was kind of a jerk,” said Victoria, who was staying in the city for work. “The night just went on, we started having more conversations, a lot deeper conversations, and pretty much we didn’t stop hanging out after that.”
The timeline after that was swift: About a week later, Victoria, who had been staying in a hotel, moved in with Alex. Less than three weeks after meeting, they got engaged at the beach. Less than six weeks after they first met, the pair got married in a courthouse wedding. They moved to the Dallas area that fall.
“We just clicked very well. The conversations never felt forced, and we were usually thinking the same thing or would say the same sentence at the same time,” said Alex. “I think that’s why it was like, ‘All right, this feels perfect, like a perfect match, so why prolong it and wait for it just to appease everyone else, and what the quote-unquote standards are, and let’s just go and get married.’”
The feedback the couple got on their speedy marriage was mixed. “Some of my family was like, ‘He could be a serial killer,’” Victoria recalled. But now, living with their two dogs and their baby, 7-month-old Kathryn, it’s clear that their relationship is standing the test of time.
“As months turned into years,” said Alex, “I became more and more absolutely confident that this is my spouse and who I belong with and who I’m supposed to be with.”
Meat-cute
Names: Mark Lee and Connor Gray
Location: Mark lives in Knox-Henderson and Connor lives in Turtle Creek
When they matched: April 2021
What sold Mark about Connor’s Tinder profile was not alluring photographs or a witty bio. It was that Connor once worked as a “Hotdogger,” or the driver of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
“I thought it would be fun to in the future be like, ‘Oh yeah, I once dated a guy who used to drive the big hot dog,’ as a fun fact, or never have I ever, or two truths and a lie kind of thing,” said Mark. “And it is.”
The weekend after Mark got his second COVID shot, he drove to go on a roller skating date with Connor in Fort Worth’s Riverside Park area. Afterward, they chowed down on Chuy’s Tex-Mex at a picnic. “It was all pretty adorable, actually saying it out loud,” said Connor.
Shortly after, Mark left the area to spend the summer in Denver and Portland, debating whether he should return to live in Plano with his parents, where he’d spent the pandemic. He eventually came back to Texas in October, and he and Connor rekindled their flame at a Remi Wolf concert in Austin. “We’re each other’s first boyfriends,” said Connor.
Love thy neighbor
Names: Lauren Cox and Jake Vossen
Location: Dallas’ Midway Hollow
When they matched: April 2019
Both Lauren and Jake were visiting friends in Houston when they matched on Bumble. “I messaged him, we were chatting, getting along really well,” Lauren recalled. “I can’t remember which one of us eventually that weekend broke the news to the other via the app that we didn’t live in Houston, but from there, the other said, ‘Oh, well, you know, I don’t live in Houston, either.’”
It wasn’t long before the pair determined that they both lived in Dallas’ Design District, but that wasn’t the end of the serendipity. “Turns out that we lived in the same apartment complex,” said Lauren. That weekend, when they both returned to Dallas, Lauren asked him over to help her build a coffee table. The rest, as they say, is history — at least, it will be when the couple ties the knot next December in Houston.
“I didn’t really think it was that strange to be dating on Bumble,” said Jake. “I just don’t know that I really ever thought that it would be this successful.”
College sweethearts
Names: Susana Garcia and Evan Miller
Location: She’s from East Dallas, he’s from Carrollton (both are students at University of Texas at Austin)
When they matched: September 2021
With more than 50,000 students milling around UT Austin’s campus, it’s no wonder that Susana, a journalism major, and Evan, a civil engineering major, never ran into each other. Even when they matched on Tinder in September 2021, they chatted occasionally, but didn’t meet up in person until they realized they were both back in the Dallas area for Thanksgiving break with their families. They decided to go to White Rock Lake.
“Maybe it was just the fact that we weren’t surrounded by our normal distractions of school and our lives that we decided, OK, maybe we should finally hang out,” said Evan.
Once they were back on campus, they kept the spark alive, making their relationship official on Valentine’s Day during a sunset picnic in Austin’s Zilker Park. “I was about to give up fully on dating apps, and I almost didn’t even talk to Evan,” Susana said. “I definitely did not expect to find a relationship. I was definitely not counting on that in college, but sometimes things just happen.”
Without Tinder, they think they would have remained anonymous faces to each other on campus. “It’s hard to imagine us meeting naturally in very many other circumstances,” Evan said.
Match-rimony
Names: April and John Lynch
Location: Carrollton
When they matched: May 2019
April was new to Dallas when she and John matched on Hinge. Hoping to avoid the inertia of endless texting, they quickly met at Whistle Britches in Far North Dallas, chatting over a three-hour brunch. Soon after, April jetted off to Italy for the summer for work, but when she got back, John asked to pick up where they left off.
By March 2020, the pair had moved in together, and they got engaged that December. At their New Year’s Day wedding this year at the Hickory Street Annex in Deep Ellum, a small sign on display showed a re-creation of the pair’s “match” on Hinge. “I was able to find the same pictures that were our actual profile pictures at the time,” said April. “So it was super cute and a way to pay homage to the fact that we met that way.” The signature drink — a mix of vodka or bourbon, lemon juice, maple syrup and cinnamon — was dubbed “The Hinge.”
“I think before John I was very nervous of the stigma,” said April. “As we got more serious and realized this was going to be it for both of us, why not be a show-off of the fact that we met on an app and worked out?”
Cards on the table
Names: Taylor and Cody Martin
Location: Aubrey
When they ‘matched’: December 2019
At the end of 2019, neither Taylor nor Cody was on dating apps. They were both freshly out of long-term relationships and not looking to start anything new. In fact, Cody put the remaining signs of an ex-girlfriend — including a round, two-tiered coffee table — on Facebook Marketplace in an effort to move on.
He got a flood of inquiries about the $30 coffee table, but Taylor’s made an impression. “This sounds a little shallow, but for whatever reason, her profile picture stood out to me,” he said.
“When I picked it up, we could not stop staring at one another,” recalled Taylor. “He was trying to tell me how to put the table together, and I could not focus.”
The electric interaction lasted only a few minutes, but Cody was smitten. Facebook Marketplace may not brand itself as a dating app, but it sure worked like one. He asked her out, and after weeks of back-and-forth texting, they finally went on a date. Just over a year later, Cody popped the question.
Fast forward to their March 12 Fort Worth wedding: The coffee table held the newlyweds’ seating chart. “This table brought us together,” a sign on the table read. “Now let it guide you to yours.”
The couple recently purchased their first house, in Aubrey, where the coffee table sits in their living room. Just don’t expect to see it on Facebook Marketplace anytime soon. “I don’t know if it will always be front and center in the living room,” said Cody, “but we’ll always have it, for sure.”
Correction, Aug. 24 at 10:40 a.m.: A previous version of this article misstated the place where Victoria and Alex Amador got engaged.
Correction, Aug. 24 at 7:40 p.m.: A previous version of this article also misstated, in one instance, where Taylor and Cody Martin live.
