It was the kind of love story Genevieve Elizabeth Wheeler had chronicled at the end of her 2023 debut novel, “Adelaide”: American girl falls for British lawyer with an indiscernible accent in the wake of a crippling breakup and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Five months before matching on Hinge with Iain Bruce Naylor, an employment lawyer, Ms. Wheeler had finalized the epilogue of her novel. The protagonist, Adelaide, who faces many of the challenges that Ms. Wheeler had faced as a 20-something in London, including a breakup that left her devastated, ties the knot with tender, kindhearted Brennan.
“I think I did this with magic and writing,” Ms. Wheeler said of Mr. Naylor’s entrance into her life, joking that she had manifested it.
The pair initially connected on the dating app on Sept. 6, 2020, when Ms. Wheeler was living in London’s Pimlico neighborhood and Mr. Naylor was in Kennington. Ms. Wheeler, smitten with a photo Mr. Naylor had posted of his face peeking through a wooden cutout of a donkey, declared to her flatmates that she had found her future husband.
But the two couldn’t meet in person because of pandemic restrictions. Instead, they spent the next six-plus months keeping in touch, first in the app, then through text, on a semiregular basis.
Their conversations were lighthearted. For a portion of this time, Ms. Wheeler was residing with various family members in the United States. The banter “didn’t feel forced,” Mr. Naylor said. “It was just part of my day.”
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The post He Loves ‘Every Ounce of Light and Darkness Inside of Her’ appeared first on New York Times.
