This Woman’s Tweet At A Bookstore Led To Love, Marriage, And A Very Special Pokémon Sighting

When most of us tweet at brands, it’s generally to express our displeasure — cough United Airlines cough — or to ask whether a certain item is available yet without having to spend the two seconds necessary googling for ourselves. Sometimes, if we’re feeling particularly saucy, we might tweet at a store or delivery service and ask for some kind of freebie or coupon. Sometimes, the brand’s desire to keep us loyal pays off and we enjoy our free appetizer or “$2 Off*” and think “man, I am living the good life right here.” But most of us don’t find love with the person operating the social media account. That’s because most of us aren’t Victoria Carlin, a pink-haired book lover from London who found love in the most unexpected place.

According to Mashable, Carlin fell in love with the person running the Twitter account for a Waterstone’s book store after a particularly cheesy (read: sweet and nerdy) tweet about books and Pokémon. No one could have predicted the pocket monsters’ resurgence in popularity four years ago, and so the tweet — which was a modest success — only received a handful of responses:

One of those responses was Carlin’s. After watching whoever was running the account argue over which was the best Pokémon (it’s Pikachu, right? Or is it sexy Magikarp?), she couldn’t take it anymore and revealed that she had a dragonaire-sized crush on the guy or gal who was out there trying to get people to read books and reignite their passion for collecting ’em all.

And that’s when the world started watching. Soon, Carlin’s declaration of love was at over 2,000 likes, but that didn’t stop the Shy Guy (Mario is better than Pokémon! You heard it here first!) from trying to let her down easy. Maybe he was clever on the interwebs, but the guy running social media for Waterstones wanted to let her know he wasn’t all that and a bag of chips IRL.

Fortunately, it didn’t matter.

From Mashable:

According to Victoria’s Twitter crush — now husband — Jonathan O’Brien, the two tweeted back and forth a bit before meeting in person.

“One day Victoria came into the shop with doughnuts, I ate them (giving away a very cavalier attitude to food from strangers),” Jonathan told Mashable.

The two went for a short walk on Jonathan’s lunch break, and later went out to a secret cocktail bar together.

No idea what a secret cocktail bar is, but it sounds very nice! In fact, it sounds just like the romantic location a young couple needs to share their hopes and dreams and see how they match up. In Carlin and O’Brien’s case? They were a match made in heaven (or, at the very least, they didn’t want to disappoint all their friends who were counting on this to work) (sorry about being a cynic).

In any case, Carlin and O’Brien’s relationship blossomed — a testament to the power of the internet and witty corporate accounts to bring people together. O’Brien was hopefully given a raise for such a clear indication of user engagement, but his actual engagement might have been gift enough. That’s right: the two lovebirds (I’m thinking of that ostrich-type Pokémon with two heads) were so happy together that now, four years later, they’ve tied the knot and are prepared to spend the rest of their lives together. And if you’re wondering whether the two are Pokémon Go players, the response is a resounding “are you kidding me? Of course they are!”

In fact, not to be outdone by the guy who caught a Pokémon in the delivery room, O’Brien caught one on his way to the altar (which makes you wonder how many other people were playing during the ceremony).

Pretty, pretty, pretty good! Can’t wait for the movie (book?) version of this story to sweep the world.