Few online dating communities offer the possibility for meaningful connection between like-minded people. Until recently, when I discovered LiteHowsr, a dating app that’s exclusively for lighthouse keepers. That’s where I met Samuel, a sullen but ultimately compassionate man that tends a lighthouse off the coast of British Columbia. He’s everything I could’ve dreamed of in a partner – quiet, with haunting eyes, and deeply committed to the safety of seamen.
I was nervous at first joining Litehowsr. Wouldn’t it be limiting dating in a pool of only my fellow lighthouse keepers? Shouldn’t I date someone who lives within commuting distance of my lighthouse who maybe doesn’t have a lighthouse? Wouldn’t I end up with someone too similar to my father, whose lighthouse and lighthouse-related neuroses I’d inherited?
But Litehowsr was so much better than I expected. Scrolling through the profiles of men who tended lights like myself was comforting. It was nice to know I could be with someone who understood what is was like to stand in the darkness on the shore as the waves crashed nearby, all alone, with your sole comfort the warm glow of the revolving warning light above. Finally, these were men who would get me!
And when I found Samuel’s profile – wow! He had the defined calves of a man who’s walked up a long spiral staircase, the rough skin of someone who’s felt the salt air upon his face for decades, and the haunted look in his eyes of someone who’d spent his days scanning the horizon for ships asunder. I was smitten.
Our first messages weren’t much to write home about. “Hello.” “Cold weather here, low pressure and a storm on the horizon.” But things quickly began to heat up. I sent him a picture of my lighthouse, with my small figure at the bottom, to get a sense of whether he might be into me, physically. “Nice raincoat. You remind me of red skies at night,” he said, alluding to the sailor’s proverb.
Three hundred long lighthouse-keeping days of messaging later, we were an item. Our lighthouses might be far apart (300 nautical miles) but we couldn’t be closer. We spend our evenings Skyping from our respective circular bedrooms. He plays his jaw harp to me and I read him the poetry of Seamus Heaney.
LiteHowsr has changed my life and I heartily recommend it to any other lighthouse keepers out there. This could be you – subtly smiling over a cup of tea while you chat softly with another tender of the light.
