I want to be upfront about something. I didn’t download the app to find love.
I downloaded it the way you’d walk into a store just to browse… No intention of buying anything, just curious about how the whole thing works. I’d been reading about these platforms. How they function, what keeps people hooked, and honestly, whether the scam stories were real. You know the kind of expected flow will be like someone adds you, builds a connection over weeks, then slowly steers the conversation toward some investment opportunity you’ve never heard of. I wanted to see it for myself.
So I went in eyes wide open. Or at least I thought I did.
Around January 2026, someone (known as Park, a fake name) messaged me on the App. She said she had no friends. None. And she was still processing a breakup from a relationship that had lasted thirteen years. I couldn’t relate as I’ve never been in a serious relationship, but I kept the conversation going anyway. Something about her felt real, even if I couldn’t fully explain why. We moved off the app pretty quickly. Exchanged numbers, started chatting on WhatsApp. Not every day at first, but gradually it became that. Little check-ins. “What are you up to?” “Just finished lunch, you?” The kind of messages you don’t overthink.
I kept part of my brain switched on though. Is this a setup? Is the investment pitch coming? I was waiting for it.
It never came.
Instead, we just… talked. About everything and nothing. Work, life, what kind of food we liked, where we wanted to travel. Somewhere in February, she mentioned she felt like she’d healed from her breakup. That she was ready to do things again.
We found out we both love the sea. Blue skies. That kind of peace you only get near water.
So we did something slightly insane, we booked a trip to Malacca. Together. Two people who had never actually met, planning a few days away in April. We each took leave from work.
And then we got busy with life, and somehow we never met before the trip. Not once.
The day (5th April 2026) we left, I was up before 6am. She sent me a photo the night before so I’d recognise her at the bus terminal. I stood there in the early morning with that photo, looking around like I was waiting for someone I’d known for years. Which is a strange feeling when you’re about to see a stranger’s face for the first time. When we spotted each other, it wasn’t awkward. I don’t know how to explain that. It just wasn’t. At first, we just had some silent moments and small talk.
On the bus to Malacca, we talked the whole way. Neither of us touched our phones. She shared stories about past relationships, about how she thinks about work and business, and what kind of life she wants. I shared mine. The conversation moved the way good conversations do: no forced transitions, no running out of things to say. Silence wasn’t awkward; we were enjoying the peaceful breeze by the sea.
We checked into the hotel. Had meals together. Hit the gym. Did our own thing in between, but found our way back to each other for meals, where we’d pick up right where we left off. At night, we had a few drinks (nothing heavy), just relaxed. The kind of chilling that doesn’t need to be planned. We had our favourite fish and chips at 1-Altitude Melaka (Melaka’s highest dining spot).
Here’s the thing I haven’t been able to shake off and can’t stop thinking about why.
I’m not a particularly spiritual person. I don’t tend to read into things. But when I sit with this long enough, I can’t help but wonder if this whole thing was never about romance at all.
She’s 45. She’s lived. She’s loved someone for thirteen years and had to rebuild herself from scratch after that ended. And somehow, out of everyone on that app, she ended up in my chat. Talking to me, someone who has never been in a relationship, who sometimes wonders what direction her life is even heading, who needed to hear exactly the kind of things she was saying without knowing he needed to hear them.
The conversations about business. About how to think. About what kind of person you want to become and what it actually takes to get there. Those weren’t small talk. Looking back, they were the whole point.
I don’t know if I believe in coincidences anymore after this. Because what are the odds that I downloaded an app half-expecting to get scammed, and instead walked away with someone who, without ever trying to, quietly handed me a new way of looking at my own life?
Maybe she was sent. Maybe the universe, or God, or whatever you believe in, has a way of placing people in your path at the exact moment you need them, not always in obvious ways, not always in the form you’d expect. Sometimes it’s a 45-year-old stranger on a dating app who just got over a breakup and needed a friend too.
Or maybe we both needed each other. And that’s enough.
I don’t have a clean answer. I just know that I went looking for nothing, and somehow found something that felt like a light.
And that’s not something I’m willing to call a coincidence.
All I know is this:
Not everything in life needs to be explained immediately.
Some experiences are not meant to be solved.
Just… experienced.
It has been two years since my last posting in 2016. Why is it I feel the need to portray my thoughts onto paper rather than thinking things out of my head? With that, I have the urge to write and tell my stories.