Graphic by Leah Abucayan/CNN Photos by Getty Images and Lindz McLeod
(CNN) --
When Lindz McLeod stepped off the plane at John F. Kennedy Airport, she immediately felt a surge of excitement and anticipation.
"I had never been to the United States," Lindz tells CNN Travel.
"It was really interesting to uproot and go to a new continent completely on my own, I really wanted to, I saw it as a new adventure."
It was June 2019. Lindz, then 33, had traveled to New York from her home in Edinburgh, Scotland, to attend a writers' conference.
After a disappointing dating streak in Scotland, Lindz saw the American conference as the start of a new chapter, focused solely on her career and the writing opportunities she hoped would come her way.
Her love life was officially on the back burner.
"Maybe now is the time to focus on myself and not worry about any of it," he remembers thinking.
"Of course, the universe had other plans."
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Everyone else in Lindz's life thought that her friend spending a week alone in the Big Apple was the perfect premise for a romance.
"You're going to meet someone amazing in New York," they insisted.
Lindz ignored his predictions.
"I was determined that that wasn't true. And I was sorely wrong."
Lindz was still at the airport when her phone buzzed with a notification: She had a match on the dating app Bumble.
Although Lindz had given up on dating, he hadn't bothered to delete the app, and unknowingly when Lindz's flight landed and he took the phone out of airplane mode, his profile location automatically changed from Edinburgh to New York. .
Walking through the airport to passport control, Lindz absently scrolled through the profile of the woman she had matched with on Bumble: a 30-year-old woman named Z, who lived in New York.
"She was very pretty," Lindz says.
But aside from the five eye-catching photos, there wasn't much information about Z: no likes list, no description of an ideal first date, no favorite movie.
"You hope that the biography contains some information, and all it said was: 'Write me a poem.'"
As a writer, Lindz was intrigued, although she also found it a bit presumptuous not to include any personal information in your dating profile.
"I thought, 'Well, that's a bit presumptuous maybe, but it's also interesting. I'll save that for later."
The rest of the day was a whirlwind of emotions, as Lindz met a host of friendly and like-minded writers at the conference.
That night, after several drinks, Lindz checked his Bumble again.
"I had a few drinks with some of my new mates and thought, 'Yeah, I'll write you a poem. It'll be great. It'll be the best poem you've ever gotten on Bumble.'"
Without thinking too much about the content, Lindz typed in several verses ("It was a tolerable ABAB rhyme scheme, not necessarily my best work").
Then he hit send.
A perfect first date
Z, left, and Lindz, right, say they met and had an "instant connection."
Credit: Lindz McLeod
ZK Abraham was sitting in her Upper East Side apartment when Lindz's response appeared on her phone.
Z, a psychiatrist who had spent most of her 20s in medical school, had received a few poems, of varying quality, since a friend created her Bumble profile and included that suggestion.
Lindz's poem stood out right away.
"I read Lindz's poem and felt a bright spark," Z tells CNN Travel today.
"It was very exciting".
Z excitedly showed Lindz's poem and profile to her housemate.
She then wrote a reply and Lindz wrote back.
The two started messaging each other through the app.
Z took an interest in Lindz, who he found "really charming and funny."
After a few messages, Z realized that Lindz didn't live in New York, or even in the United States.
"It was quite a surprise to me, because I had been to Scotland and had spent time there, and I thought it was very cool," says Z.
They spent the next few days texting.
"Lindz was a writer and we hit it off on so many levels. She was so cute and pretty. I definitely wanted to meet her, just to see."
The two agreed to meet at a Chelsea bar, close to where Lindz was staying.
Lindz was excited, despite herself.
Yes, she was leaving New York the next day.
Yes, she had given up on dating, but she thought Z was worth meeting anyway.
And why not?
Lindz arrived early at the bar and ordered himself a drink.
While she waited, she began reading a blog post recommended by one of her new friends from the conference about a bad date.
Lindz thought it would be entertaining and that he might calm her down if she didn't end up getting along with Z.
The blog post made Lindz laugh out loud, so much so that when Z walked in and approached the table, Lindz was wiping away happy tears.
AZ found it charming.
He smiled, sat down, and the two introduced themselves.
"I have to say, the photos don't do Z justice," says Lindz.
"So she was expecting someone who was pretty pretty. And then she walked in, and she was gorgeous on a model level. And I wasn't ready for that."
The two quickly struck up a conversation about writing: Although Z was a psychiatrist, she spent her free time on nonfiction.
"Our first date was the best first date I'd ever been on or heard of. It was an instant connection," Lindz recalls.
"We were chatting as if we had known each other for a lifetime."
At one point, Lindz took off his jacket, revealing a tattoo on his forearm.
“They are my favorite lines from a Robert Frost poem, but they are written in Jane Austen's handwriting,” he explained to Z.
"I have Whitman on my back," Z said, referring to the American poet Walt Whitman.
For Lindz, knowing that both she and Z had literary tattoos only reinforced the feeling that it was a meeting of minds.
I thought, "My God, am I in love?" Lindz recalls today, laughing.
Their writing conversations were entertaining, exciting, and thought-provoking, and ideas were exchanged.
At one point, Lindz went to the bathroom, leaving his phone with Z, so his date could read some of his work.
Only later did Lindz realize that it had been a long shot.
"But I instinctively trusted you," he tells Z today.
"Normally, I would never have given my phone to a stranger."
As for Z, he says he'd be "a hundred million in perfect agreement" that it was "the best first date ever."
The two, she says, were "in the moment."
They were enjoying each other's company, excited to have made that connection, not thinking about what it might mean in the long run.
"We compartmentalized it, because I think that would have prevented us from trying to connect in those first few hours that we met," says Z.
Later, however, when they were at Z's apartment, Z said out loud that it was a shame Lindz was leaving the next day.
"Okay, I'm leaving," Lindz said.
"But not in the direction you think."
One of Lindz's best friends lived in Colorado and Lindz was going to visit her before returning to the UK.
"I'm actually going to Denver, instead of coming home. I'm going to be there for two weeks," Lindz explained to Z.
Then he paused and took a deep breath.
"Why don't you come?" he asked.
At the time, Lindz had no idea how far Denver was from New York ("to be fair, I'm not very geographical," she says).
It was her first time coming to the United States and she still hadn't gotten used to how big the country was compared to the United Kingdom.
And he thought: 'I like Z. Why shorten when you don't have to?'
The next morning, Lindz and Z did not speak of Denver again.
"I thought, 'My God, she doesn't want me anymore. Okay, fine. I'm not going to see her again,'" Lindz says.
But they kissed goodbye when Lindz was on his way to the airport.
Lindz couldn't send messages on his British phone while he was in the US, so they exchanged emails.
an unexpected second date
A couple of days later, Lindz received an email from Z.
"Were you serious when you invited me to Denver?"
Z wrote.
"Of course," Lindz replied.
"I don't say things if I don't mean it."
By then, Lindz had spent two days in Denver telling her friend stories about their wonderful New York date.
She had also explained that she had invited Z to Colorado.
Lindz's friend, who was quite laid back, agreed to let Z come and stay if he wanted, but warned Lindz that it was unlikely to happen.
"He told me, 'Nobody's going to fly from New York to Denver for one date,'" Lindz recalls.
"I proved her wrong."
Z arrived in Colorado that weekend, and she and Lindz picked up where they left off in New York.
“We drove through the mountains all weekend, hanging out and having fun — baking and watching movies and stuff like that,” Lindz recalls.
"We were never more than two feet from each other at all times, we were holding hands. It was like we were already girlfriends."
Z says she knew that flying across the country for a second date was a long shot.
Before leaving New York, she told her brother and her housemate of her plans, and they both said she was crazy.
But Z figured that, worst case scenario, he could book another flight out of Colorado.
Wasn't it better to jump in than to regret not trying?
“I was in a phase where I wanted to take more risks,” recalls Z. “It seemed like the right thing to do, so I just did it.
It felt good, so I just went with my gut."
At one point during Z's visit, Lindz's friend pushed her away.
"Okay, I admit it," he told her.
"Z is perfect for you. They are perfect for each other, but they live on different continents."
Lindz's friend wanted to prepare her for the likely reality that once she was back in Scotland, she and Z would go their separate ways.
But Lindz didn't want to hear it.
Not only that, he didn't want to believe it.
He felt that it was the beginning of something, not the end.
Still, Lindz and Z didn't address the reality of their situation that weekend, and the two said their goodbyes without really addressing where things could go next.
"We didn't want to break the spell of what was going on," says Lindz.
It wasn't until Lindz was waiting at the airport to go back to Scotland, in the security line, that her phone buzzed with an email from Z.
"I had a great time," the message read.
"I don't want this to end. How about we see where this leads?"
long distance romance
Back in Edinburgh and New York, Lindz and Z kept in touch.
A couple of weeks after returning to Scotland, Lindz turned 34.
Z insisted on staying up with Lindz over video call as the clock struck midnight.
She wanted to be the first to wish Lindz a happy birthday.
"I thought it was very pretty," Lindz says.
The weeks passed and the video calls between Lindz and Z were more and more frequent.
"The more we talked, the more interesting you seemed to me. I felt like you weren't just someone I wanted to date, but you were quickly becoming my best friend," Lindz tells Z today.
Back then, Lindz was busy finishing a master's degree in creative writing, while Z studied for her psychiatry finals.
"Sometimes we'd make a video call and sit quietly studying for six hours, not talking, just to be there," Lindz says.
Both Z and Lindz told their loved ones about their budding transatlantic romance.
"My friends and others were very encouraging," Z says. "I was definitely talking a lot."
"My mother had always told me that I should find myself an attractive doctor. And then I did, and I was really upset that I made her happy like that," Lindz says, laughing.
"Actually, I spent my whole life trying to break parental expectations and being a rebel. And then I did exactly what she wanted."
One consequence of the long distance was that Z and Lindz's intellectual connection, evident from their first date, became the cornerstone of their relationship.
"When you're not in person, you can't just hook up constantly or something like that. You have to know the person," Lindz says.
"And there was a real hunger to get to know each other in a really deep way."
The two continued to share their writings.
"I think over time I fell in love with you as a person, but I also partly fell in love with you as a writer," Lindz tells Z today.
"For me, that deepens it, because I got to know you through your writing as well."
About two months after saying goodbye in Colorado, Z and Lindz met again.
Z traveled to Edinburgh to visit Lindz.
Z says it was a whirlwind trip, but it felt "totally natural and romantic to be together again."
A couple of months later, Lindz returned to New York.
"We always had our sights set on the next visit, which I think is important if you're not in the same country, you have to know if you're going to see another," says Z.
This long distance became harder with the start of the pandemic.
In 2020, the couple spent seven months apart when the borders were closed.
"We would spend the night on video call, so that she would see me sleep and I would wake up with her," Lindz says.
During this period, the two tried to practice what they had done on the first date: stay in the moment, enjoy the now for what it is.
But they also started talking about the future.
Would they try to live in the same country?
Would they get married?
And as the pandemic wore on, Z began to rethink his career.
"I was in a phase where I wanted to get out of psychiatry and go into writing even more," he says.
Inspired by Lindz, Z decided to pursue a master's degree in creative writing.
She applied for herself and was accepted into a program at the University of Edinburgh.
Z moved to Scotland and went to live with Lindz.
It was exciting, but almost a bit overwhelming: they hadn't lived on the same continent in almost a year.
Now they shared a house.
But Lindz and Z soon settled into the routine, enjoying learning new things from each other and exploring Edinburgh with its vast literary heritage together.
Building a home together also meant blending Scottish, American and Eritrean traditions: Z's family is from Eritrea in East Africa.
"That had a huge influence on my cultural background," says Z, who says the Eritrean influence is evident in her cooking.
The two also got a good laugh about how Z's naturally sunny and more American character is more unusual in Scotland.
He has stumped many Scottish cashiers by peppering the interaction with smiles and friendly questions.
"They're always confused and a little desperate," Lindz says with a laugh.
A proposal and a counterproposal
Lindz and Z enjoyed two marriage proposals.
Credit: Lindz McLeod
As for the marriage, Z and Lindz were on board.
They saw a future together, and both agreed that "a proposal shouldn't be a surprise," but "how it's proposed should," as Lindz puts it.
In January 2022, Z had just returned from visiting his family in the United States.
While there, she discovered a beloved snow globe from her childhood in the garage that had gone bad.
She was upset, as the snow globe had meant a lot to her during her childhood.
Back in Scotland, Lindz heard her partner share her disappointment over the phone.
Between consolations, Lindz asked him questions.
"What exactly did that snow globe look like? Could you describe it a bit more?"
Lindz then spent hours searching eBay, hoping to find a perfect replacement.
He didn't find the same balloon, but decided to buy Z a new one.
"It's not perfect, but it looks pretty close," Lindz concluded.
Z and Lindz have a cat, and to prevent her from actually opening Christmas presents, they had placed several wrapped boxes as decoy under the tree.
Lindz hid the snow globe in one of them.
When Z returned from the States, Lindz suggested that it was time to remove the tree and boxes.
As they began to do so, Z inadvertently picked up the box containing the snow globe, noting that it was heavy.
"Open it," Lindz said.
Z was confused, but she agreed.
Then she, removing the wrapper, she saw the new snow globe.
"I said, 'Look, I can't fix the one that was broken. But this can be yours. It can live in our house and we can promise we'll take good care of it. And we can make new memories with this one. And it won't replace what you had. But maybe it will comfort you," recalls Lindz.
"She was in tears, me too, and I got down on one knee and proposed to her."
Z, como ella dice, "contrapropuso matrimonio" unos meses después, planeando un fin de semana sorpresa en los Scottish Borders. Z invitó a Lindz a pasar una noche en un hotel rural y luego la llevó a la casa del famoso escritor escocés Walter Scott.
"Su casa era increíble, majestuosa", dice Z.
Cuando Z y Lindz entraron en la habitación que en su día fue el estudio de Walter Scott, rodeada de estanterías de piso a techo, Z esperó a que se marcharan los demás visitantes. Entonces se arrodilló y le pidió a Lindz que se casara con ella.
Una película de la vida real
Aquí están Z y Lindz en su casa de Edimburgo, Escocia. Crédito: Lindz McLeod
Lindz y Z siguen viviendo felices en Edimburgo. Hay planes de boda, pero no será pronto. Por ahora, la pareja concentra sus esfuerzos en renovar su casa y seguir adelante con su carrera de escritores. Ambas son escritoras publicadas, y Lindz estudia ahora un doctorado en escritura creativa, además de trabajar como editora freelance.
Son los primeros en leer el trabajo del otro y en animarse mutuamente a arriesgarse y seguir adelante.
"No se trata solo de tener pareja. Nos alentamos mutuamente en nuestro trabajo creativo", dice Z.
Aunque por ahora la boda está en un segundo plano, la pareja ha pensado en sus futuras nupcias.
"Creo que nos gustaría una boda más pequeña", dice Lindz. "Pero me encantaría llevar un vestido bonito".
"A mí también", coincide Z.
"Así que a ponerse un vestido bonito, bailar un poco y rodearse de gente a la que queremos y apreciamos", dice Lindz.
Lindz y Z no solo tienen en común la escritura y la lectura, también son grandes cinéfilas y van al cine varias veces por semana.
"Z es la única persona que he conocido que ha visto más películas que yo", dice Lindz.
Una de las primeras películas que recuerdan haber visto juntas fue "Magic Mike XXL", "la mejor de las Magic Mike, la más feminista de las Magic Mike", como dice Lindz.
"Una película hermosa", coincide Z.
Vean lo que vean, los dos siempre conversan en profundidad después.
"Creo que somos personas a las que nos gusta deconstruir algo de verdad, queremos meternos ahí y hacer el Tetris", dice Lindz. "Eso me gusta, es divertido".
Hablando de películas, el año pasado Lindz tuiteó sobre su encuentro con Z. El hilo se hizo inesperadamente viral y Lindz recibió una montaña de mensajes diciendo que su historia debería ser una película.
"Quizá lo sea algún día. Hay un montón de pequeñas cosas ridículas que la hicieron parecer muy cinematográfica en su momento", dice Lindz.
Z está de acuerdo. Cuando Lindz le propuso venir a Denver después de aquella primera cita, recuerda que pensó:
"¿Qué harían los personajes de una película? Se irían con ella".
Hubo momentos, dice Z, en que toda la experiencia casi parecía "trascendente". Podía imaginarse la banda sonora reproduciéndose a lo largo de su vida.
"It had this kind of magical glow," Lindz agrees.
"It seemed unreal, surreal. Because it was just wonderful. You don't expect something like that to happen. You don't expect it to last, you expect a bit of limerence, not that it turns into love."
"I don't know, if I saw it as a movie, I would find it a little hard to believe."
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