Date to marry, not to have fun
When I was fresh out of college, a week before I started my first job, I had my first grown-up relationship. I met him on JDate, a Jewish dating app. He was a nice guy a few years older than me, living near Georgetown with a few roommates. We texted for a few days before he proposed a crazy first date: an overnight trip to Atlantic City with his friends. There was no hotel stay — we were going to pull an all-nighter driving there and back in twenty-four hours. With a healthy sense of adventure and perhaps a slight death wish, I said yes. We had an epic time and began a fast and furious relationship for the next few months. While we had a lot of fun together, it became clear pretty quickly that we were very different people.