In the year 2021 a gentleman named Leo Shemesh was spending his days frolicking through his newfound home of Santa Barbara. Like most bachelors there he thought to himself, “what on earth am I doing here?” You see, Santa Barbara is a beautiful place but it isn’t exactly known for its flourishing singles community. Nonetheless he downloaded the app Bumble. For the next couple of months Leo would spend some time swiping through all twenty single women in town. He even meet a woman who believed that a particular race of aliens were already living on Earth. This dragged on for a bit until fortune struck. A woman who went by Claus (pronounced “Clau”) showed up on his Bumble feed, he recognized immediately that they would get along when she flat out wrote “No Trump supporters” in her about me section. He swiped right and BOOM!

Wonderful he thought and waited to see if she would send him a message (on Bumble “women go first”). Sure enough he didn’t have to wait very long. He was ecstatic. They chatted for a bit before Leo realized that Claudia was several hundred miles away from him. Turns out Claudia was just visiting Santa Barbara with her cousin George when she happened to be swiping on the app. Sadly she had already left Santa Barbara and had returned to Pasadena. In an even less fortunate circumstance, Claudia wasn’t even from Pasadena but from Mexico City.

Claudia suggested they meet anyways but Leo felt it was too far a distance for a single date especially considering that future dates would be close to impossible. From there they decided to maintain an online friendship. They chatted about all sorts of things and Claudia even suggested that Leo come check out Mexico City and she would be his tour guide. He decided to throw caution to the wind, something he wasn’t known for doing, and booked a trip.

In September of 2021 Leo arrived in Mexico City. Claudia greeted him there at the airport wearing a cheerleader costume. “She’s the one”, he thought. They hit it off. For the next six days they traveled together through the City, getting to know each other, and having a blast. Leo headed back to Santa Barbara not knowing what the next step was but luckily Claudia did. A week after he returned Claudia came to Santa Barbara where they continued their experiences. The adventures never stopped. More back and forth from Mexico to the US, a short trip to New York, a longer trip to Israel, two Mexican Christmases and here we are.

Leo proposed to Claudia on Christmas morning 2022. And guess what? She said yes!