This Toronto couple met on a 5K Pride run after years of missed connections

These days, most love stories begin with an electronic swipe instead of the electrifying meet-cute we secretly crave. 

Toronto is full of fascinating people with main-character energy, and yet, most of us are just too painfully shy to make a move in person, leaving us heartbreakingly haunted by missed connections. 

How many of us locked eyes with a stranger on the TTC or fancied someone at a coffee shop, only to kick ourselves later for not saying anything? For me, it's always been a struggle to sit with the stinking unknowns and those torturous what-ifs. 

Recently, I came across a story that seemed to defy all of that. A story about a missed connection that somehow found its way back, years later, in the most unexpected way. 

Zach Chan & Mark Uyar have been together for 11 years since reconnecting in 2015. 

Back in 2008, they first met during frosh week at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. (Fun fact: we recently reported it as one of the top schools for dating.) They were young, newly independent, and quietly figuring out who they were.

"We never exchanged contact info because neither of us was out yet,” Chan tells blogTO.

At the time, neither of them was quite ready or looking for a romantic relationship.

"I think we both had a long journey of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-confidence that needed to grow before we met each other again," he says.

For the next seven years, the two had a series of missed connections that felt cinematic in retrospect.

Hearing Chan's story reminds me of the red string theory, an East Asian belief that two people connected spiritually by a thread are destined to be together regardless of place, time, or circumstance.

Now, I'm no mathematician, but this is how I see it: Right person + wrong time = tragic. Right person + right time = magic. 

Mark Uyar and Zach Chan at their wedding. Photo courtesy of Zach Chan.

Sometimes you feel like you've met the right person, but the timing is all off, and they slip away like a bus you just missed. But when everything finally lines up, all those near-misses start to make sense.

For Chan, the red string finally did its work.

One fateful morning in June 2015, Chan and Uyar reconnected at the Pride & Remembrance Run in the Church-Wellesley Village. At the finisher's tent, after completing a 5K run, they recognized each other and started up a conversation.

Chan was the first to make a move by inviting Uyar out to a Pride party after the run. At first, he was unsure if Uyar would show up and was pleasantly surprised when he did.

"I didn't really know anyone else at the party aside from the host, so it was a great way to spend a lot of time together," he says.

Looking back, Chan vividly remembers an "a-ha" moment during frosh week. 

"They gathered all of the first-year students for this big assembly, and I remember the speaker saying something like '50 per cent of you will meet your future spouse here' and [I was] thinking that was impossible — but now we're part of that statistic!"