To Tinder, From Bri: A Thank You Note
On September 8, 2014, I matched with Bradley Ray Nickerson on Tinder. I was in my last year of college in Chicago and Brad had just moved out to the city from the burbs. We met up for drinks in our neighborhood, and a beautiful friendship began to bloom.
After about a year of being solid gold, A+ BFFs, I told Brad I wanted to move to Austin and he said that he wanted to move to New York City. I was bummed that we’d be living so far away from each other, and began to casually mention that he should just change all his plans and move to Austin with me so that we could live in the same place and explore a new city together! It took some convincing, but after a couple months of harassing Brad with screenshots of the beautiful Austin weather, sending him links to “20 Reasons you NEED to Move to Austin” articles, and taking a trip to visit Austin together, he was sold.
Thankfully, Bradley went to college with Elizabeth Anne Rand (Lizzy), who was already living in Austin, and became our perfect and beautiful third roommate! We named our house The Beige (it’s very beige) and living together was a breeze and a dream, but after a few months in Austin we were collectively craving more friends we could add to our trio.
Then one day Lizzy came home and said, “I went to Workhorse last night and met this group of really cool guys!” A couple days later she was like, “I ran into those really cool guys again at Hotel Vegas!” Then we ran into the really cool guys at church and then later that day at the gym, and they invited us to Workhorse that night. That was the day that Brad and I met John, Jon, Oscar, and Jerry (really cool guys). We ordered a bunch of fried pickles and beer and had a wonderful time together. At The Beige that night, we all felt in our hearts that these were the new friends we’d been looking for. The next day, Jerry came over to our house to take a look around because he was thinking about subleasing Lizzy’s room while she was on a trip through Asia for a couple of months. He agreed to take over her room while she was away, which is how I got to know Jerry, and we all know what happened after that! Brad and I slowly got to know those cool guys better (while Liz was in Asia) and started spending time with more people in their friend group.
Not long after Jerry moved in, I broke my foot in a tragic rooftop/ladder accident, and couldn’t walk without crutches or drive myself anywhere for a few months.
It was rough, but during that time I didn’t have to call a single uber/fassen (lol Austin) because the people in that friend group drove me everywhere. All I had to do was send out a group text, and someone always volunteered to drive me to work, foot-doctor appointments, the grocery store, or on any other random errand. They were also willing to invite me out to parties and introduce me to more people even though I couldn’t walk, which I really appreciated. It was amazing to feel so supported by this huge group of people I just met.
This friend group is truly unlike any other. It’s so inclusive and strong that it goes back years, connects small groups of friends with other small groups of friends, and welcomes new people like me, Brad, and Liz so willingly. I’m consistently amazed by how much talent, creativity, generosity, and love pours out of this group, and I’m so thankful to have fallen into it. If I hadn’t downloaded tinder and matched with Bradley back in 2014, we would never have moved to Austin together, I never would have met sweet baby Liz, we would never have run into that group of cool guys, I never would have met Jerry, and my life would be much less full than it is now. So thanks Tinder!
xoxo,
Bri
