For the past few years it's been comical, even a sort of a competition, for guys to slide in a girl's direct messages in the smoothest and funniest way possible. Unfortunately, these messages are taken merely as a joke and nothing really stems from them despite the amount of effort and creativity that goes in to some of these messages.

Now, I'm not saying that having someone slide into your DMs is the most romantic thing in the world. We definitely have gotten away from the days of buying someone flowers and taking them on a real and proper date, and that's a shame, but this new era of Internet romance is one like no other. And it's proving to be successful. Well, for me anyways.

I'm one of the few who can say that my boyfriend and I met because he slid in to my DMs. Yes, we went to high school together, but going to a school of 2,000 students and not being in the same grade, our paths never really crossed and it's likely that they never would have.

But on the fateful day in November of 2014, he became a classic millennial boy and decided to shoot his shot in my DMs. He didn't just try the classic "hey", but went all out with a cheesy pick up line, and boy, did it work.

And the rest, really is history. I filled out his "survey" and after a year and a half of texting each other on and off, we made it official and started going on dates with one another. It's so strange to think that a romance that has lasted three and a half years spurred from something that is thought to be no more than a funny internet trend. And if we're being honest, at the time, that might have been all that he really thought that it was too.

Every time I see a screenshot online of a guy creatively sliding into a girl's DMs, it warms my heart. And although I'm aware that most of the time nothing arises from this other than a good laugh, I'm hopeful that it could be the beginning of a new relationship.

This is the era of online dating and Tinder hookups and sliding in someone's DMs. The reality is that this is how people are meeting these days and although it's easy and sometimes funny to poke fun at the people who engage in these relationships, they actually can be successful.