Joel & Meera

I had just graduated from undergrad when my brother Tom convinced me to get on DilMil. At first I was reluctant, however I decided to gave it a chance! Little did I know I would soon be meeting my soulmate. When Joel and I started talking, the first thing I noticed was his Aussie accent (!!!) and how natural the conversation felt. What initially was supposed to be a 30 minute phone call turned into 5 hours (I would later find out Joel pulled an all-nighter just to keep talking to me even though he had work the next day). These little sacrifices truly speak to Joel's character, and still 3 years later he continues to love and support me unconditionally without any hesitance.
Not a day goes by that Joel doesn't put a smile on my face, whether it be by sending me memes only he would find funny or singing random songs in the silliest voices. Even from across the world he has been my rock and my biggest supporter. No matter where this life takes us, I know Joel will be there to cheer me on during the highs and hold my hand through the lows. I am so honored to have the privilege of spending the rest of my life with my kind, silly, goofy, selfless, humble, intelligent, and loving best friend and I am so excited to finally close the gap!

I had been on DilMil on and off for a while, after being inspired by the love story of a Malayali-American couple that I met while travelling in Europe to attend World Youth Day in 2016. It took a couple of years, but I came across a beautiful girl who had "Kna-Catholic" and the love for the TV show 'The Office' in her bio, who turned out to be my future soulmate. My initial attempts at trying to make her laugh via below average 'The Office' memes were pretty flat (I had never watched the show at this point). However, luckily for me, our conversation suddenly became lively for the better soon afterwards, and Meera later told me that this was after I mentioned my World Youth Day experience in 2016, which had intrigued her. Soon enough, we got to know each other via our text conversations a little better, sometimes even roasting each other for a few embarrassing moments from our past. We decided to have our first Video call, which I was self-admittedly insanely nervous for, but once I started talking to Meera, all those feelings went away and we ended up talking to each other for over 5 hours!

Over time, we got to know each better and better with our daily video calls late night before I went to sleep which would be early mornings for Meera when she woke up earlier just to talk to me, and during our lunch breaks which we arranged accordingly to not miss talking to each other. Prior to COVID, we would take turns to visit each other and our families for just over a week every 6 months or so, but the pandemic separated us for over 13 months, and in many ways, the uncertainty and separation caused by border closures made us realise how much we loved each other and how ready we were to spend the rest of our lives together.

Meera is my rock and my biggest supporter, through the good times and the bad, which I know there is a fair few of the latter. While the long-distance and cultural differences between us made our relationship in many ways unconventional, we were able to navigate through it all in our own way and came out of the tough times loving each other more. There is no else that I want to live the rest of my life with and I can't wait to make Meera my wife and my life partner on July 9th!