Elise Ariel Shanholtz had no expectations when she looked up her ex-boyfriend, Daniel Marcos Schwaycer, on Spotify in November 2025. They had not been in contact for two years, and even though she made genuine attempts to join the dating pool, Mr. Marcos Schwaycer was all she could think about.
Mr. Marcos Schwaycer, 28, had been quietly enduring the same fate.
“I was at home listening to music that really reminded me of Elise,” he said, “and I would just start putting them on a playlist.”
They first met in San Francisco in November 2020. Their Hinge profiles included photos with their cats. Ms. Shanholtz, 29 was particularly drawn to Mr. Marcos Schwaycer’s reference to a niche internet meme.
“I felt like it was made for me,” she said.
They met in person a few days later at Dog Eared Books in San Francisco. As a nervous Mr. Marcos Schwaycer made his way to the bookstore, Ms. Shanholtz, who lived a few blocks away and arrived early, crafted a cheeky text she hoped would be “flirty and enticing”: “You may find me amongst the books.” Her text calmed his nerves.
By sheer coincidence, they wore matching sherpa-lined corduroy jackets — Mr. Marcos Schwaycer in blue and Ms. Shanholtz in pink.
The two later relocated to a nearby taco place, where they discussed a second date. They held hands as he walked her home that night, and as they stood on Ms. Shanholtz’s doorstep, he asked to kiss her good night.
“Then he said goodbye,” she said. “And I watched him walk away. And then I watched him turn around and look at me.” She looked him up on Spotify that night.
Mr. Marcos Schwaycer was born and raised in Mexico City and moved to Atlanta in 2015. He has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and is currently enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he’s taking master’s level classes in literature. He was a product manager at Google when the couple first met, and is now actively interviewing for jobs in Seattle, as he plans to move soon to be with Ms. Shanholtz, who owns a townhouse in the city. She moved there in October 2022 to be close to her sister and newborn niece.
Ms. Shanholtz was born in Baltimore and raised in Pikesville, Md., and earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan. She is a musician and works remotely as a software engineer at Twilio, a cloud communications platform based in San Francisco.
For their second date, Ms. Shanholtz, an avid cook, offered to prepare a meal at Mr. Marcos Schwaycer’s apartment.
That day, he immediately ordered his first set of pots and pans.
They spent the evening exploring his library and record collection, and discussed exclusivity. Even though they didn’t start using the terms boyfriend and girlfriend until later, they both believe that night was when their relationship began.
In their first year together, they enjoyed comfortable silences and virtually streamed concerts, given the pandemic. They fit into each other’s lives with ease.
In late-October 2021, after Mr. Marcos Schwaycer moved to New York City, they split up.
“I was pretty blindsided when it happened,” Ms. Shanholtz said. “I wasn’t angry. I understood why it was happening and that in some ways it needed to happen. I just wanted to hold onto it for as long as I could.”
Mr. Marcos Schwaycer said he realized adjusting to a new city while in a long-distance relationship would be difficult to manage.
When Ms. Shanholtz contracted Covid at a music festival in Spain in summer 2022, she quarantined for a week in the same city she flew out of — New York City. Mr. Marcos Schwaycer visited her hotel room, often with a Gatorade and saltines in hand. They both admit their time together that summer was romantic, but still, they did not rekindle their relationship.
Their short time together inspired Mr. Marcos Schwaycer to make a playlist about Ms. Shanholtz named “Hotel Room Saltines.” As they both went through different phases of life, like Ms. Shanholtz’s big move to Seattle, they remained in contact, and in the spring of 2023, she proposed getting back together.
Their time together that year was short-lived, and they broke up after a few months, when Mr. Marcos Schwaycer’s inability to travel to Seattle to attend Ms. Shanholtz’s first solo music performance as an indie folk singer made her realize the distance could result in a never-ending cycle of disappointment. This time, she insisted they go no contact to help ease the pain of moving on.
Mr. Marcos Schwaycer spent the next two years making multiple playlists about their relationship, and in November 2025, he noticed that Ms. Shanholtz had made a “Hotel Room Saltines” playlist of her own. The description attached to her playlist was a quote written by his favorite author, Jane Austen; “How ardently I admire and love you.”
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“Do you really?” he texted her the next day.
”I could never stop,” Ms. Shanholtz replied.
After talking on the phone for about an hour, the couple decided to rekindle their relationship. Ms. Shanholtz recalls saying “I get to marry Daniel!” out loud after their first call.
On Jan. 23, the couple had a civil ceremony at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, in front of their parents and the photographer, who is the bride’s best friend. The ceremony was officiated by Deborah Bowman, the director of administration.
“Everything that day felt very kismet.” Ms. Shanholtz said. They spent their first night as a married couple listening to some of their favorite songs in their room at Hotel Chelsea, and working on The New York Times’s Jan. 23 crossword.
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