A Welsh woman is to fly 11,000 miles to marry her perfect ‘Tinder match’ after a glitch on the app paired her with a man in Swansea – New South Wales, Australia.
Jessica Maverick, 29, was matched with Steve Collins, also, 29, from near Swansea, on the dating app in January.
But Steve lived in Swansea in New South Wales, while Jessica lived in Cardiff – despite both setting their profiles to find matches within a 100-mile radius.
Claims investigator Jessica’s ‘radius’ stretched as far as Swansea, Wales – and she believes a malfunction in the app linked her to Steve.
But the error was ‘the best thing that happened to them’, as Jessica and Steve, a DJ, fell in love through a series of messages and Skype calls.
They met for the first time in Dubai on March – the halfway point between their homes – and it was love at first sight.
“Some might see this as a Tinder error but to me it was fate. Steve and I would never have met one another if we hadn’t been ‘wrongly’ matched on the app. It was meant to be.”
Now, after a four-month whirlwind romance, Jessica is moving to Australia to be with Steve and the couple, who have matching tattoos, plan to wed.
She added: “People might be sceptical but we speak for hours at a time over Skype and when we met face to face I knew I was meeting my other half.”
Both Jess and Steve had been single for six months when they were ‘matched’ on the dating app.
Jess said: “I was attracted to his dark brown eyes straight away and swiped right.
“It was only once I saw we’d matched that I looked at his profile and saw he actually lived 10,655 miles away.
“I realised that there must have been a glitch in the app as we were both in range of a place called Swansea – only I was in Wales and he was in New South Wales!
“I messaged him and pointed out the distance, which Steve hadn’t noticed, and we joked about it and got chatting.”
“We bonded over our shared sense of humour and life experiences. Soon, we were messaging via WhatsApp every day.
“We logged on at 9pm UK time, and I drank wine as we chatted, so it felt just like a real date. Our chemistry was amazing, even just on a screen, and we spoke for six hours.
“We both admitted we loved each other. I had never felt that way before and knew we had to arrange to meet in person.”
Jess admits she was nervous flying out to meet a ‘stranger’, but the two clicked emmediately.
“We compared notes on our journeys and went back to our apartment, where we shared our first kiss,” she said.
“Later we swapped presents – he gave me a necklace and I gave him a jar of notes to pull from when he missed me.
“The chemistry was electric and the following night we got intimate for the first time. We spent a lot of the holiday in our hotel room!”
On their final day, after a week together, they each got a tattoo of half a mandala symbol.
She said: “Steve got one on his leg and I got one on my arm in a slightly different design. It symbolises the fact we are different people but together we’re complete.
“I cried when I got on my flight home. I started planning our next meet straight away, and we discussed moving overseas to be together. We’ve spoken about marriage being in our future.”
Jess says that her family and friends are happy to see her in such an ‘equal, happy’ relationship.
The pair have both deleted their Tinder accounts and swap ‘hundreds’ of messages a day.
Jess said: “Steve and I will always be grateful for whatever Tinder glitch matched us to one another.”
Steve said: “Everything about the way we met feels like fate.
“I could never have imagined that Tinder would lead me to find the love of my life on the opposite side of the world.”
Ummm… this guy has a pregnant girlfriend?????
This guy got a girl pregnant, and cheated with another girl all within he last 6 months…. how has he had time to meet somebody on tinder and get married? Shouldn’t he be taking care of his unborn child?