2 married couples recall their experiences with dating app
A Cranberry Township couple probably never would have gotten married — let alone met one another — if not for Hinge, an online dating application they each used in 2020.
A different couple from Cranberry Township also may not have gotten married if not for that same dating app — although they knew each other in high school, so their online encounter was more of a reintroduction than love at first sight.
The first couple is Steve Cochran, who is originally from Parkersburg, W.Va., and Katie Cochran, née Dollard, who hails from Marshall Township in Allegheny County. They had been on Hinge since 2019, and while Katie made a few connections on the app, it wasn’t until she landed on Steve that there was a spark.
She said the COVID-19 pandemic made many people apprehensive to meet in person. However, Steve was not only willing to, he made the suggestion quickly.
“We started on Monday, the date was on Friday,” Katie said. “Steve moves quick. I didn’t meet any other guys that fast.”
Hinge is set up like some other social media profiles. Users upload photos and a bio to their profile. However, it also gives users prompts to answer, which are visible on their profiles. As users scroll through the app, they can view other people’s prompts and respond to them, which is intended to lead to more-focused conversations.
While this is its intended purpose, Katie said her first message wasn’t a response to a prompt.
“I said, ‘Hey, what’s up,’ and I didn’t expect him to respond,” she said.
It was a simple message, but one that did not go ignored by Steve.
He said not everyone on the app seems to actually want to go on a date, so he tested the waters by asking for the other person’s phone number.
“From my dating experience, you get on the app to get the number,” Steve said. “You’ve got to get the phone number so you can know they’re serious.”
Steve had recently moved to Bridgeville in Allegheny County, and got on Hinge because he didn’t know anyone else in Pennsylvania.
Katie was in nursing school, and looking to seriously date people, she said.
Their idea of what they were looking for on the app lined up with one another — and Steve said that his outcome was ideal.
“For me, it was the exact thing that happened,” he said of his goal of getting on Hinge.
Katie said their first date took place pretty much entirely outdoors because of the pandemic. The two went to Point State Park in Pittsburgh, where they hit it off.
“We were there for like three hours and we walked around,” Katie said. “You couldn't go in places, so we got Condado (tacos) and ate it on the side of the river.
“After about three hours I said ‘I’m cold, I’m going home.’ Then we had another date two days later.”
Steve said he feels like he got lucky with his dating app experience. His original goal of meeting people in Pennsylvania paid off big time, he said.
“It’s easier to find a bunch of people you might never normally meet in typical situations,” he said. “I probably would have never met Katie if she hadn’t found me on the app.”
The other couple, Fermin Calderon and Nicole Lehman, were friends while attending North Allegheny Senior High School. They even went to a prom together, but they had not kept in touch since graduating in 2014.
Fermin said he had been on Hinge for a while and had gone on a few dates before coming across Nicole’s profile in May 2021. One of Nicole’s prompts on the app asked what was the way to her heart, an answer that Fermin had a leg up on thanks to their shared history.
“I was pretty good at making her laugh, I used to make you laugh a lot,” he said.
Nicole said she had been on and off dating apps since college, but reactivated her Hinge account in 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic also affecting her decision. It didn’t take long for her to get the message from Fermin, although she wasn’t sure of the intention behind it.
“I thought he was just matching me because we match their friends,” Nicole said. “I didn’t really know if it was a date situation or if we were just matching.”
It was the end of May when the two matched on Hinge, and it was only a few days later that they went to an Italian restaurant together. After talking for hours in the restaurant and then even more hours outside, Nicole said the two planned to have another date just two days later.
She said the couple’s relationship progressed quickly, in part, because of her history with Fermin.
“I knew he wasn’t a serial killer, and I knew we got along as friends. I think that kind of helped,” she said. “I was open to meeting someone on an app, but wasn’t expecting to marry someone.”
Four years — almost to the day — after their first date, Fermin and Nicole got married on May 25, 2025.
Nicole also said she is still sometimes surprised she got married to someone whom she got together with on a dating app. The outcome of the app was good, even though it doesn’t feel like the origin of their relationship.
“My overall thought on apps is — it doesn’t matter the way you meet someone, it doesn’t really matter, it’s just hard to find the right person,” she said. “In our case it wouldn’t have mattered if he just randomly texted me.”
