I matched with a guy on Hinge. At the time, I was traveling and about to leave the city, so meeting wasn’t really possible. But I had a strangely good intuition about him that me exchange numbers.

He’s an NRI and a CEO, and he was in India for work. Honestly, I assumed the conversation would fade in a week or two considering he was so focused on multiple things professionally. But it didn’t.

We kept talking. About literally anything and everything.

1. He texted consistently everyday(!) for months. Not obsessive texting, not love-bombing, no weird games.
2. While some guys struggle to even plan a date, he would actually schedule weekly calls for us and even plan little online activities we could do together.
3. He was kind, grounded, intellectually engaging, and most importantly, genuinely proud of me. I could see the the kind of pride that is rare.

Three months into talking, we both realized we probably wouldn’t get bored of this dynamic anytime soon. But because we live in completely different parts of the world, we decided to stop texting every day and just stay in touch. Now we catch up through bi-weekly or monthly calls.

He is there rooting for me and celebrating teeny-tiny achievements of mine. He even made me a 7-page birthday card for my b'day.

There’s no label, no expectations, no benefits, nothing transactional about it. When I look back at it after 8months of knowing him, people like that actually do exist and they exist as you want. It brought me good hopes in today's dating market!

He set my standards a little higher