Trusting my gut in a Miami nightclub

The rebound trip that ended in a Morocco marriage.

Brendan and I just recorded a video for YouTube about what it’s like to work together in the content creation space. We’ve been together for 14 years and after this video published, I got a lot of questions around how we met, so I figured we were overdue for a meet-cute story time.

Okay, setting the scene: It’s 2011 and I had just been dumped by someone I’d been dating for two years. His name was Asher Roth and he had a hit circa 2009. Nice guy but not right for me. The breakup was really sudden and my girlfriends wanted to take me on a trip to Miami to help me get over the situation and have my moment.

It was my first time in Miami during Basel and we weren’t really part of that scene yet. I didn’t know what to expect. And the first night we go out, I meet Brendan at a club. And I always say that it immediately felt like we were the only two people at the club. I genuinely don’t remember who introduced us, but somehow we ended up having deep conversations about personal things, including his dad’s cancer diagnosis. We were talking for so long that we didn’t even notice the club was closing around us. Like, lights-on, tables-being-cleared level of closing. The people working there were like… okay, you guys need to leave now.

As we’re leaving, we both realize that neither of us grabbed our phones and I’m thinking great, my phone is now gone forever. Brendan decided to go back in there and try finding it. He asked me to wait for him but I got a taxi back to my hotel as soon as he went inside. I know what you’re thinking: why did you leave him hanging? Well, I had just gotten out of this relationship. I couldn't believe I was talking to this guy so intensely. I was kind of shook. It felt so intense in that moment that I thought okay, I need to get out of here.

I get back to the hotel room I’m sharing with all my girlfriends and tell them I’ve met this awesome guy and they’re like “Okay Hannah, this is a rebound trip, you can’t possibly have met another guy and started a new situationship.”

Cut to the next night: We walk into Soho House and who’s the first person I see? Brendan. It was the craziest kind of fate. He walks right up and says, “You ditched me.” And then, “I’m so glad to see you.” He had already replaced his phone and I hadn’t. That night, we ended up on the beach watching the sunrise, and from that point on, we were inseparable.

I ended up extending my trip by two days after my girlfriends went home. They thought I was insane for doing it, and I don’t really blame them, but I just had this strong gut feeling that this was the guy.

I also made the conscious choice to not get a new cell phone. I didn’t want Asher reaching out because at that point I knew he would be crawling back, and I stayed in a room with Brendan and his friends at the (now closed) Shore Club. Honestly the best post-breakup cleanse is one without a cell phone or any social media.

I finally get back to New York and still didn’t have a phone, so Brendan had to email me to make plans. I had created a brand-new email address so my previous boyfriend couldn’t reach out to me. We fell into a rhythm: two days on, two days off. Every time we saw each other, it felt like no time had passed. We started dating pretty seriously almost immediately. It was obvious from the day that we met that we were super into each other and that this wasn’t a fling or a rebound or anything like that.

I'll never forget that I waited for him outside his apartment when he was traveling home from Paris and his flight was delayed and I didn't have a phone, and I was waiting for him on the corner, outside of his apartment for almost two hours. I had no idea that his flight was late and he had no way of contacting me. It was the first night Brendan and I, you know, took it all the way (lol) which was two months after meeting.

(I will also say that I did not end up getting a phone for almost four months. And it was one of the most freeing times in my life. I had an iPad that worked on WiFi and I had a Skype cell phone number that allowed me to call out, but no one could call me, which was a really interesting exercise pre-social media, and I loved it.)

This was when Brendan surprised me in St. Barts.

Basel was December 1st and on New Year’s Day, Brendan surprised me in St. Barts while I was on a girls trip. He just showed up. We all melted. He told his mom the day after we met that he’d found someone special. And now, here we are, 14 years later. My gut feeling was right at that nightclub in Miami.

Moral of the story? In a world full of dating apps, don’t forget that it’s still possible to find love in the club.