Photo Credit: Jonny Aperture
“In April 2018, Erik Simpanen was a graduate student at Brown living in Providence, R.I., when he swiped right on the dating app the League. He matched with Lloyd Mullings, a graduate student at Boston College Law School who swiped in the same direction.” -New York Times, Mini Vows
In your own words, tells us your League Love story.
We matched on the League in April of 2018. Lloyd messaged Erik first (although Erik argued otherwise before receipts were found). We chatted for a week or two before scheduling our first date at Barcelona Wine Bar in Boston. Our second and third dates followed that same week! By our third date, we knew we had something special. We made it official that May and soon after found out Lloyd would be leaving for a military deployment overseas. No questions asked, we stayed together through it all. We got engaged this past July (2020), and got married in October! We’re still a budding family with our cat Zuko but we can’t wait to see what life has in store for us.
What do you consider a unique part of your relationship now?
While we cherish our similarities, we make a point to champion those aspects which make us individually unique. We continually try to learn from and understand each other, which only helps to strengthen our balance. Neither of us wanted to take the other’s surname and so we found balance in a name that we thought represented us individually and as a couple: Ocean.
When did you know this was your person?
Erik knew Lloyd was the one when he realized he was his complete, authentic self throughout the whole dating process. It felt so freeing to discover that there is a perfect match out there where neither of us has to edit ourselves. Lloyd knew Erik was the one when he saw in Erik a passionate, lifelong companion with whom he could share every adventure. Lloyd saw it on the second date and let himself believe it on the third.