Lana Condor Had An “Enchanted” Meet-Cute With Her Fiancé

Turns out, Lana Condor is a hopeless romantic. When we start talking about dating, relationships, and meet-cutes, she’s more than ready to go there. “These are the same conversations I have with all my girlfriends all the time, so this is perfect,” the 27-year-old tells Elite Daily.

Condor recently joined forces with Tinder for the latest iteration of the brand’s “It Starts With a Swipe” campaign, which reimagines the meet-cute in a digital environment. TL;DR: You can still have an adorable “how we met” story full of butterflies and chemistry, even if you initially connect on a dating app.

Condor, who starred in Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy, is no stranger to rom-com-like beginnings. She’s acted out plenty of these sweet moments on screen, and her first introduction to her now-fiancé Anthony De La Torre at age 18 could have been written by Jenny Han herself. “It literally felt like a movie,” she says. (More on that later.)

Here, Condor opens up about her favorite meet-cutes, her best long-term relationship advice, and her takes on viral TikTok dating mantras.

Elite Daily: This campaign is all about re-imagining the idea of a meet-cute. Do you have a favorite meet-cute in pop culture?

Lana Condor: This might be cheating for an answer, but I love the meet-cute in the first To All the Boys movie between my character and my love interest. I think it’s so sweet.

I also re-watched 27 Dresses recently, and I just love the two leads and their meet-cute — when she’s running back and forth between two weddings because she’s overbooked. That movie brings back a sense of nostalgia. It’s very lovely.

ED: I feel like people place a lot of emphasis on the idea of finding a partner out in the wild. What do you make of that?

LC: In today’s day and age, meeting people online is very accessible. I think there’s a lot of value in being able to test the waters and suss them out before meeting them in person.

There are obviously benefits to both, right? I met my fiancé IRL, and that really worked for me. But I have a lot of girlfriends who prefer online dating, especially meeting new people on places like Tinder, because they feel that they can control the environment to see if it’s a good match.

I was thinking about this amazing guy that I just met, and I was listening to “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift over and over.

ED: You mentioned meeting your fiancé in the real world. Did that feel like a meet-cute at the time?

LC: One hundred percent. We met at an Emmys party, and our eyes locked across the room. He came over and said, “Hey, I thought I would make a friend.” In hindsight, I think that’s the sweetest thing he could have said.

On the car ride home, after I had gotten his number, I was thinking about this amazing guy that I just met, and I was listening to “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift over and over. From then on, we were totally inseparable. And now, we’ve been together for almost 10 years. I’m so annoying talking about this, but he’s everything to me.

ED: You obviously know what it takes to build a successful connection, so I’d love to get your take on some viral TikTok dating rules and mantras. The first: “If he wanted to, he would.”

LC: I can’t agree with that more. It’s the hardest piece of advice I have to give my girlfriends who are out here in these streets trying to date. Anthony is a part of a lot of these conversations too, and he will tell them that all the time. It sucks to hear and can be difficult to digest. But at the end of the day, it’s true.

ED: What about “If it’s not a f*ck yes, it’s a no”?

LC: No, I totally disagree with that. A lot of successful relationships that I’ve seen started as genuine friends and blossomed into something more. I am a believer in a slower burn. I think it’s a really effective way to get to know someone.

As you get older, you realize you don’t need to feel this crazy hot passion immediately. You let go of the idea that if you’re not willing to suffer and break your heart open for a relationship, then it’s not real. In my personal experience, relationships aren’t supposed to be as difficult as the movies make them seem. There’s a real charm in a very soft, slow, comfortable relationship.

ED: Last one: “When you know, you know.”

LC: I think so, but at the same time, anything can happen. For me, I knew it was Anthony and never looked back. But people can also change their minds. In general, though, I think that’s pretty true.

ED: You were 18 when you started dating Anthony. What’s the best part of growing up with your partner?

LC: We’ve just seen so much life together and so many different versions of each other. When we first got together, I was living in this tiny, tiny studio apartment. We would get furniture off the street.

Over the years, seeing how much we’ve grown and where we are today versus where we started, I have so much gratitude for that. It’s a shared gratitude that we’ve been a part of each other’s lives for so long and in so many different phases. It’s comforting to know that you’ve had someone who has intimately experienced all the highs and lows you’ve gone through.

ED: What was it like being in a huge rom-com series while also navigating your own love life off-screen?

LC: It definitely presented some challenges. When you work in this industry and do rom-coms and have a real relationship, it can get a little bit muddy. But I was always confident in what we had.

In many ways, my relationship actually helped my work in those movies because I had real-life experience. In my career, I’ve worked a lot in the rom-com space, and so having my own relationship start with a meet-cute has given me insight into how to make that dynamic work on screen.

Still, during To All the Boys, there was a group of people who were really mean to Anthony because they didn’t support us. They wanted what they saw on screen to be real, which I completely understand. It means I did my job well.

Back then, I was trying to keep my relationship really private. I eventually realized that was not the move. I needed to go public with it to quiet the noise and be like, “No, this is the person I am with. This is the person I choose.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.