I met my fiancé online.

Well, kind of.

I mean, I did. But it wasn't as simple as that. It wasn't "online," but rather through an app. It was Tinder.

I met my fiancé on Tinder.

And I feel as though I can't tell anyone about this.

I can't tell anyone about the sweet messages he sent me to get to know me. How scared he was that I wouldn't answer. How hopeful he was that I would. How impressed he was by my writing that I had of course linked in my profile. How happy he was to see a notification from me pop up at the top of his phone when I finally checked my own phone and chose to respond.

I can't tell anyone about how he 'Super Liked' me and so I swiped right on him.

I can't tell anyone about how we spoke for weeks before officially meeting in person, but at that point it felt like we had known each other our entire lives.

I can't tell anyone about any of it. Because of how these dating sites are perceived in the world.

I tell people I met him online. Because that is just now starting to be considered an acceptable way to meet people. And because I don't like to lie about us to people whose opinions truly don't matter to me.

But clearly they do. Clearly their opinions matter, or else I wouldn't care what they thought about the fact that I met my fiancé on Tinder.

But even when I admit this to myself, I can't admit it to them. I can't tell them with a straight face or without disclosing the fact that I *actually* met him on this dating app — "but it's not what you think."

And I instantly hate myself for doing this. For having to justify it. For having to explain it to people who don't deserve an explanation. But I do it anyway. Why? Because otherwise I'm embarrassed. But let's be clear — I'm not embarrassed of my fiancé … I'm just embarrassed by the medium on which we met.

Tinder is known as a hook-up app. Especially when used by college students, which is when we met one another. But not everyone on there is looking for one-night stands or hook-ups or meaningless sex — or however you might want to phrase it. Not everyone wants a friends-with-benefits playmate. Some of us wanted a real connection. Some of us just wanted to meet friends — and that's friends without benefits, for the record. Some of us just wanted to be taken seriously without the dick pics and the groping and the harassing for nudes. Some of us wanted a conversation.

Some of us wanted something real.

We wanted something real.

And we were lucky enough to have found each other amongst all of the people who weaken the sanctity of our first meeting.

We met. We fell in love fairly instantly. We dated — even long distance, for awhile. We met each other's family. We moved in together. We fell deeper for one another. We got engaged. And in two months, we will be married.

And in private, we thank Tinder for bringing us together. We thank the numerous duds that we met along the way that made us almost get rid of the app altogether. We thank the fact that we held onto it for that extra day and happened to be within the same vicinity of one another in order to even match in the first place. And we thank each other every day for not being as shallow or conceited or as horny as the people that create the persona for the app to begin with.

But we still shy away from telling people. Because it is judged for being the place people go for hook-ups. And we can see it on your face when we tell you that that is how we met. We can tell that you're wondering the circumstances of our first meeting. We can tell that you're doubting the truth of our relationship not being founded purely upon the physical entity. We can feel your judgment radiating from your pursed lips and skeptical eyes. And so we don't tell you. We keep it to ourselves. And we choose to tell the close-minded people that we just happened to meet "online".