Nigerian, Sede Alonge, Finds Her Perfect Soulmate on The Guardian's Comment is Free

Sede Alonge, a Nigerian hooked on reading online news articles, dropped a comment on such an article written by fellow Nigerian in the UK, Remi Adekoya. Her comment began a conversation between them on the comment is free discussion forums. The took it off the pages and several phone calls, emails, meetups, and a about a year later, Sede and Remi are engaged and planning to get married. Read her account below..

Looking back, following the news was a habit I subconsciously acquired from my mother. I remember how, in the evenings after supper, the family would sit in the living room talking, and before long someone would switch on the TV. Most of us preferred to watch light entertainment – a movie or something similar – but invariably, my mother would plead with us to watch the news, leading to sharp protests, frustrated groans and ultimately the rest of us slowly filing out to our bedrooms.

We hated having to watch the news, something we generally believed to be drab. Perhaps, if it had been just one episode, we would have endured "knowing about events happening around us", as mother would put it. But she insisted on watching re-runs, back to back, and on all the different available channels. We hated the fact that our mother tirelessly watched the news as if she was some kind of analyst. It didn't matter to her that she often dozed off in her armchair, midway through stories that had in all likelihood lulled her to sleep with their boring, repetitive drone. The most annoying part of it all was that if anyone attempted to change the channel, she always woke up.

So it was ironic that, years later when newspapers began to publish their contents online, I became something of a news lover myself. The fascination was stirred during my postgraduate days at university, when I would scour the internet for articles in support of my course work; I was usually the one with a random news article to back up an argument, brandishing a link or even a printed page. The internet home page on my laptop became a news website. The absorption continued post graduation, but I was unaware how addicted I was to browsing news websites until a house mate commented on the weirdness of my habit. She had stumbled upon my homepage, and said it was the oddest thing she'd ever come across (unsurprising, as she much preferred tabloid gossips and the like). She simply couldn't get my "news fix" being the first thing I needed whenever I switched on my laptop.

When the cyberworld shrank even smaller and was able to fit into our palms I transferred the habit on to my phone, savouring news even more frequently than before. If I had given it much thought I would have said it was nothing more than a time filler; something to do when a reading distraction was needed. So when one day I found myself reading and commenting on a Cif article on a subject I would not have usually found interesting, I could not have imagined the events it would precipitate.

Before long, the author of the article and I became engaged in a chain of discussion in the comments section – also something totally uncharacteristic of me. We eventually moved it elsewhere, discovering mutual interests and a growing attraction for each other along the way. In retrospect, commenting on that article was the best chance decision I'd ever made. Soon, nearly every minute – both day and night – was spent in endless discussions of topics, ranging from the serious to the mundane.

Despite the fact we lived thousands of miles from each other, we inexorably felt closer than our physical space permitted us. And when we finally met in person, it couldn't have felt better and stronger. Nearly one year later we are engaged and planning on tying the knot – and it all still feels absolutely amazing, surreal, and increasingly beautiful by the day. It also made me realise the truth of the saying that we find things when we are not looking for them. And to think I didn't have to go through the rigours of sorting through Guardian Soulmates (just kidding, but true) to find my "one". Thank you, Guardian, for bringing me my perfect soulmate.

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