Unconventional meet-cutes that will change your view on modern love

FORGET the Hollywood trope of locking eyes across a crowded room; today’s love stories are being written in DMs, Zoom calls, and, occasionally, Walgreens parking lots.

- VUYILE MADWANTSI

ZOHRAN Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, met his now-wife, artist Rama Duwaji, on Hinge.

(Instagram)

If anything, modern romance has never looked more real, messy or magical.

Just ask Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, who met his wife, artist Rama Duwaji on Hinge. Yes, Hinge, the dating app that is “designed to be deleted”.

For a politician now dubbed the “people’s mayor,” his meet-cute feels perfectly millennial: swiping right in between campaign calls and policy drafts.

Mamdani, 34, shared the story on The Bulwark podcast earlier this year, noting that his love life is proof “there’s still hope in dating apps”.

Duwaji, 27, is a Brooklyn-based artist, and the two tied the knot in a civil ceremony at New York’s City Clerk's Office, a day Mamdani described to Interview Magazine as “beautiful and reminiscent of a New York that belongs to everyone”.

And honestly? Something is refreshing about that. No political photo ops, no curated love story, just two people who found each other between algorithmic fate and authenticity.

Mamdani and Duwaji’s story is just one example of how people are redefining what it means to find love today. From laundromats to meditation Zoom calls, real-life stories like theirs prove that romance still has a flair for the unexpected.

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