Michelle Arendas and Josh Avsec have kept up an epic Tinder conversation for nearly three years—and after it recently went viral, their story scored them a free trip to Hawaii. BuzzFeed details how it all started for the Kent State University students when they matched on the dating app in September 2014. Avsec, now 22, sent Arendas, now 21, a message, but at the time she was often deleting and re-downloading the app, so she didn't see it right away. When she finally responded more than two months later, she joked: "Hey sorry my phone died!" Avsec played along, waiting another couple of months after that exchange before responding, "Hey, sorry was in the shower." And so it went, with both of them waiting months (in one case, as long as 10 months) between messages with poor excuses like being in class or having had "a really busy week."
On Friday, Avsec shared their message history on Twitter, asking readers to take note of the dates and commenting, "One day I'm going to meet this girl and it's going to be epic." The tweet went viral (it's so far been retweeted more than 17,000 times), and someone ultimately identified Arendas and tagged her ("sorry I'd reply but I need to give it a few months !" she tweeted). People started suggesting Avsec and Arendas not only meet in person, but get married. And then Tinder got wind of what was going on—and decided the couple needs to at least meet. "It's time you got together IRL. You have 24 hrs to decide the city you want to have your first date in and we'll send you there!" the company tweeted. Avsec and Arendas settled on Maui, and Tinder is making plans to send them both to Hawaii. Until then, they tell BuzzFeed they still haven't met in person, but they plan to do so very soon. (This first date ended in a lawsuit.)
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