Mark Connors

I come from humble beginnings. I grew up in New Hampshire with a single mother who did her best to raise a son diagnosed with ADHD. She nicknamed me "Dennis the Menace" because I could be hyper. One minute, I'm watching Barney on PBS; the next minute, I'm setting tissues on fire with the gas stove or flooding the kitchen because my butt cheek plugged the kitchen sink with running water. My mom told me that I was the reason she had gray hair. I might have been a wild child, but I had a good heart and a gentle spirit.

Slowly but surely, I mellowed out as a kid and eventually came to faith, a story for another time. The first few years of school were rough, but after a few bumps, I started doing well. If I wasn't doing homework, I was probably playing video games, which you can blame my mom for. She got me into The Legend of Zelda at a young age. These activities defined most of my childhood and high school years until I escaped the cold winters of New Hampshire and moved to sunny California for college in 2009, which was a huge departure from all I had known. I spent five years earning my first bachelor's degree and then moved to Virginia to pursue a second one in 2014.

Christine Tsuzaki

I grew up in a Japanese family in Oahu, Hawaii, and lived in a poor Hawaiian neighborhood with my parents. I had a few relationships, but I was always looking for something permanent, which left me usually single. In August 2023, I tried online dating on eHarmony for the first time. I answered the icebreaker questions as honestly and thoroughly as possible, since I wanted to ensure that some would take interest in the real me.

As I chatted online with people, I noticed that a lot of them seemed to be interested in the fact that I was Japanese and from Hawaii than anything, which was distressing because I worked pretty hard on my profile, and since that seemed to be going unnoticed, I wondered if I wasted my efforts on that. They also didn't seem interested in discussing anything deep or personal, which didn't work in my favor since being deep and personal is very important to me. I met one local person there, and we dated for a month until he decided it wouldn't work out, and we parted ways.

One day in October, a friendly-looking guy named Mark sent me a message saying that he appreciated what I wrote on my profile, and he sensed a lot of frustration on my side. He shared his gripes about online dating and let me know I wasn't alone, which was the encouragement I needed to hear. I told Mark that I had already been chatting with someone else for 2 weeks and if it didn't work out, I would be happy to chat with him. Sure enough, the person I was chatting with on eHarmony went silent and I told Mark that I was open to start chatting with him.

However, as a realist, I was prepared to put him through the wringer. I asked him tough questions and told him gritty details about my life that usually scared people off. But Mark took everything in stride and seemed perfectly up for the challenge, which impressed me, since nobody has ever passed my tests that I usually put them through. I was preparing myself for disappointment, and wondered what would be the factor that would make things too hard and inconvenient that he would call it quits. I was thinking, "Virginia? No way. That's 6 hours behind. How is that going to work out?" But Mark corresponded so quickly with me and that gave me the impression that I was only one he was chatting with, and that he was looking forward to my messages daily.

After about 10 days of bonding over stories of our backgrounds and personal lives, Mark asked if he could start texting me. He sent me my first text while I was sitting at the breakfast table with my parents and my cat was on the kitchen floor. We texted every day, even when I went to Hilo, HI, on vacation, and I sent him photos from my trip. We never Facetimed each other, only sent photos and video back and forth. That was when he confirmed the fact that in his eHarmony photo, he was 70 pounds heavier and had shorter hair. Now he was skinner and had longer hair, and looked a bit like a rocker, though he was a developer, as he told me. I was pleasantly surprised, although he still looked like Jack Black.

Mark Connors

I joined the world of online dating in 2018 because my friends nagged me. I was reluctant because as much as I enjoy technology, I have difficulty expressing myself in just a few words. In 2020, I dated someone pretty toxic, which made me question what I valued in life, so I spent the next few years on self-improvement. I lost weight, became a developer, which I had wanted since I was a teenager, and solidified my independence. Regardless, I felt alone; meanwhile, online dating was not working. I became discouraged.

On October 26, 2023, I was about to delete my eHarmony account until I came across Christine's profile. I did not think to myself, "Well, hot damn, she's cute!" Instead, I thought, "Oh wow, an Asian chick in my list of matches?" I can't explain why, but I felt she was frustrated with online dating like I was, so I sent a message encouraging her that she was not alone and that her faith did not go unnoticed. To my surprise, she responded, saying she was encouraged but was talking to someone else then. I did not think anything would come of our conversation, but she left an impression.

A few days later, I thought, "If she messages me back and wants to keep talking, then sure, I will put in my all to pursue her." The moment I got home, she sent me a message. We have been talking ever since.

On November 8, 2023, we left eHarmony and began texting each other. On December 1, we talked on the phone for eight hours!! She only wanted to get off the phone because she needed to use the bathroom and eat food. By the end of the month, I flew 4,750 miles to Hawaii. I wanted to kick off the New Year by spending time with Christine. My family and friends thought I was nuts because I never got on a video call with her before committing to such an adventure. She will tell you more of the story, but all I will say is my time with her was life-changing.

Christine Tsuzaki

Our first phone call was in December, and we chatted for 8 hours straight, from noon to evening Hawaii time. Shortly after our call, Mark started making plans to come to Hawaii. He said he wanted to spend New Year's with me. We decided on December 30 and counted the days until he arrived. Mark flew in on a slightly rainy day, I arrived at the airport with a lei and bag with Hawaiian local coffee and macadamia nut chocolates. As I waited for him in the baggage claim, I was worried that I was going to end up greeting the wrong guy and would have to take back the lei and chocolates! Finally, I saw a tall guy wearing a sweater with an almost-buzz cut and goatee. I hid behind a pillar to make sure it was really him, not wanting to have an awkward moment of greeting some complete stranger only to see Mark waving at me from a distance. As I peeked at him, Mark looked over and waved at me, calling out, "Hey Christine!" I was flattered that he recognized me, but I wondered what the heck happened to his hair.

When we arrived at his Airbnb, I told him to change into a T-shirt and flip flops right away so that he didn't look too much like a tourist and get mugged. We spent the rest of that first evening getting dinner and buying him some clothes that were better suited for Hawaii weather and wouldn't make it so obvious that he was from the East Coast, although his pinkish skin gave him away. After going shopping from some shorts at Target, I took him home with me to meet my mom. Little did I know that she would just be getting out of the shower with a towel on her head. When I saw how she was dressed, I went upstairs to tell her, "Mom, there's someone here for you." She came downstairs and I watched my mom and Mark have their very first introduction. All my mom could exclaim was, "Oh, Mark!" towel and all.

As promised, he spent New Year's with me, and we said Happy New Year in style. He tried to put his arm around me, but I walked away to get a better look at the fireworks. On New Year's Day, since it was tradition to see my relatives, I brought him with me and put him through the wringer once again by having him stand in a room with other Japanese, possibly more than he had ever seen in his life. My family ended up getting along with him and he tried unfamiliar Japanese food like a real trooper. Again, my attempts to scare him off failed. I spent the rest of the trip taking him around Oahu and showing him some important places to me, many of which are not a typical tour guide's list. Some of them included a beach in front of a run-down dog shelter and the local humane societies. I had him try everything to Hawaiian poke to spam musubi and loco moco, which I was sure he would grimace at, but he ate to his heart's content. Dang it.

The week was going well, but I had to break it to him that I didn't find him physically attractive yet. Being in Hawaii where the population is mostly Asian, I wasn't sure if I had ever seen someone like Mark in my life. Then I realized that I actually seen his face before—in an American History textbook. I told him that his short hair and crayon-like goatee made him look like a Civil War Soldier. "Ha! That will offend him," I thought. But he reluctantly agreed and just smiled. What? What was it going to take to get him to finally see that he had his work cut out for him, maybe too much?

Christine Tsuzaki

On one day, I invited Mark and my cousin Blake to go hiking on one of the many Oahu trails. My absentminded judgment forgot however that hiking trails in Oahu tend to be slippery because of the frequent rainfall. On our way down from the hike I slipped and fell and felt a sharp pain in my neck. I spent the rest of the day in pain and came home tired and grumpy. My father launched into a lengthy conversation with Mark, and I sat in a chair foolishly trying to rest sitting up. As Mark stood to leave and I walked him outside, I was so tired and in pain that all I could do was express my frustration in the middle of the parking lot facefirst on top of his car hood. Mark picked me up, saw my distress and asked to kiss me goodnight, for the first time. I reluctantly said, "Okay," too tired and in pain to even think. As he left that night, I could only think about my neck and what I affectionately called the "toothbrush kiss" because of his Civil War-style mustache.

During the trip, I purchased for Mark his first aloha shirt, which I told him was the shirt that people in Hawaii always wore and I felt it was high time that he had one. I chose for him one that was navy blue and went well with his eyes. As he tried it on, he looked less like a Civil War solder and more like, I daresay, a handsome guy, and he knew it too. He took me out on our first official date and wore the aloha shirt. My neck had still been hurting so I had asked to only see him that evening. Little did I know that during the day, when he had supposedly been "running errands" (which I wondered about because I didn't know what he could possibly be doing, maybe buying cleaning products?), he was at Kay Jewelers purchasing a diamond necklace and matching earrings. He gave it me telling me that the necklace and earrings signified his promise to pursue our relationship to marriage, which he was going to discuss with my father before his trip ended.

We spent Mark's final day in Hawaii going to the doctor's office for my injured neck—another thing to check off Mark's "Things to do in Hawaii" list. We ran in the pouring rain, and I saw Mark off at the airport. The only thing I was unhappy about was that I wouldn't be able to call him for a few hours since he would be in the air.

Mark Connors

Christine came to visit in March 2024. I was both excited and nervous. I had these plans, which fell apart. She had food poisoning twice and took some time to adjust to the time zone differences on top of experiencing daylight savings for the first time. The imperfections led me to love and care for her, drawing us close.

We checked out the Blue Ridge Parkway, Thomas Jefferson Poplar Forest, and Washington, DC. We hung out with friends, watched movies, and cooked together. I learned not to rinse my pasta, and I'm Italian! I also found out she had the hots for me when I decided to shave my beard. She recorded my facial hair, or lack thereof, as our relationship progressed in the "Chronicles of Mark."

When we were heading back to the airport, I had a crazy idea, "Christine, what if you move to Virginia?" It was just a thought. I did not expect her to tell her mom about it the moment she got back to Hawaii. She moved to Virginia on May 16, 2024, and we have been doing life together ever since. On June 28, we went to New Hampshire to visit my family and my old stomping grounds, which was a surreal experience.

Mark Connors

On July 27, 2024, I proposed to Christine Tsuzaki on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I spent a couple of weeks writing a cheesy song beforehand. I would drop her off around midnight and get home to work on the song until the wee hours of the morning. She didn't know why I was so tired in the weeks leading up to the proposal until I sang to her. It was the biggest kept secret.

I completely caught her off guard the morning of the proposal. I made it look like another Saturday morning when we frequent the farmer's market, but little did she know I had the Aloha shirt she bought me for our first official date, the engagement ring, a guitar, breakfast, and picnic blankets ready to go. I was worried about the weather because it looked like it was about to rain when we drove up the mountain, but when I proposed, the clouds opened up above us, no lie. I don't think I will ever forget that moment. We tend to name places with memorable moments, calling that place “Lucky Seven,” which we will visit to remember that day.

If you’re wondering, the chorus of the song went like this:

A man who finds a wife finds a good thing,

Yet undeserving,

That grace would flow unto me.

All my life, I tried to find,

Something that would satisfy me.

But when I’m with you, I know it’s true,

You complete me.

So tell me, Christine, oh please tell me,

Will you marry me?

I can honestly say I found my best friend and life partner. We take faith seriously, but we also know how not to take life too seriously and have a good laugh. The more we grow in our relationship, the more I realize how much I have been missing all this time. What seemed to be a world in gray is now filled with color. She is my black cat, and I am her comfy panda. She is the precious pearl of Waianae, and I am the merchant who traveled afar. We are two puzzle pieces coming together, and the adventure now begins!