Deborah Jennifer Yaarchun was shocked when her friend swiped left on Benjamin Ernest Parr.
“Why would you do that?” asked her friend’s rejection of Mr Parr on League, a dating app for ambitious people.
His photo took her. “He just seemed so happy and kind,” Ms Yartshun said.
A few weeks later, Ms Yaarchun met Mr Parr at the same app. He quickly passed to the right.
On February 3, 2018, Ms. Yarchun wore a red turtleneck sweater to their first date at Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, a wine bar in SoHo. While admitting he was inspired by Mr. Parr’s 2015 book, “Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention” — a woman wearing red on a date is likely to entice a man to sit closer, Mr. Parr — Mr. Par’s eyes lit up.
The six-hour appointment is over. So did their second date, when they walked into a Chelsea bar that happened to be hosting a burlesque show. On their third date – on Valentine’s Day – Ms Yartshun and Mr Parr officially became a couple.
“I kept thinking, ‘What’s the catch?’ said Ms Yartsun, 38. “It turned out there was no catch. He was the catch.”
They bonded over their shared love of writing. Ms. Yaarchun’s 2019 play, “Drive,” won Dartmouth’s Neukom Institute Literary Award for Playwriting, and she has taught playwriting at the University of Iowa and Indiana University. Ms. Yaarchun graduated from Drexel University with a BA in Screenwriting and Playwriting and went on to earn her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Iowa. She grew up in New Jersey and Germany before her family settled in Austin, Texas.
Mr. Parr, 39, is the founder of a pair of artificial intelligence companies, Octane AI and Theory Forge Ventures, and writes a regular column for The Information. Born in Princeton, Ill.
In November 2019, Ms. Yarchun moved into Mr. Parr’s apartment in NoLIta. The next day, the apartment directly above theirs caught fire, leaving their home with extensive water damage. They spent the next few months bouncing around New York, Los Angeles, and Fort Worth, Texas, before planning to return to Manhattan in March 2020.
However, two days before their planned move into a sublet apartment, they learned that the place was infested with bed bugs. Mr. Parr and Ms. Yaarchun, who were staying at a nearby hotel, canceled the sublease and took refuge in an Airbnb in Woodstock, N.Y. It proved prescient: By the end of the month, New York, like much of the world, was in pandemic lockdown.
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So Ms Yaarchun and Mr Parr embraced their nomadic lifestyle, choosing a new location each month, booking an Airbnb and hitting the road.
“It was clear how durable our relationship was and how much we enjoyed spending time together,” Mr Parr said.
They spent time on a farm in Vermont and a cottage in the Poconos. They visited Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. They ate Thanksgiving dinner on a bluff just above the Arizona-New Mexico border, feasting on turkey, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes from Cracker Barrel as the sun set.
“I was like, ‘How come we never have fights?’ said Ms. Yartsun. “If you can put your life in a car together over and over again and your relationship survives, you might as well get married.”
In May 2021, they moved into a permanent apartment in Culver City, California. Then on March 4, 2023, Mr. Parr proposed to Ms. Yarchun. She said yes.
They were married on April 6 at Cedar Bend in Austin in front of 91 guests. Christina Belek, a Catholic Life Church minister and mother-in-law to Ms. Yartshun’s younger brother, Daniel, officiated. They incorporated both Jewish and Thai traditions, a nod to Ms. Yartsun and Mr. Parr’s respective backgrounds. The ceremony took place under a huppah and they received two traditional Thai wedding blessings. During the cocktail hour, they served rugelach, a Jewish sweet, and Thai summer rolls.
Before guests dined on fajitas, all eyes turned to Ms. Yartsun and Mr. Parr for their first dance at the “Good day to marry you”, by Dave Barnes. The song had often come up randomly on Spotify as they crisscrossed the country, their bond deepening with every mile.
“I’m not a natural dancer, but when it came to my body I couldn’t help but dance,” Ms Yartshun said. “I would be overjoyed to marry Ben.”