When Ada first saw Kunle, he was holding a bright red suitcase that looked too big for his confidence. Pearson Airport was doing what it does best — swallowing people whole and spitting them out into new beginnings. But Ada noticed him anyway. Maybe it was the “This is fine. Everything is fine.” panic in his eyes. Or maybe it was the way he kept apologizing to a self-check-in kiosk that clearly didn’t need his forgiveness.

They didn’t speak that day.

Life, however, is a committed matchmaker.

Two weeks later, they met again — this time at a newcomer career workshop in Mississauga. The facilitator had asked everyone to pair up for an “introduce yourself in 30 seconds” exercise. Ada smiled at Kunle’s hesitant shuffle. Kunle didn’t smile at all. He was too busy trying to remember which of his qualifications he should downplay to avoid looking overqualified.

“My name is Kunle,” he said, “and I am ready to work anywhere that will not kill me.”

That made Ada laugh. Loudly. Startlingly. Embarrassingly.

But the room — the cold, fluorescent-lit, immigrant-filled room — suddenly felt warm.

On Building Love Without a Village

There’s a special kind of intimacy that forms when two people are trying to build a life from scratch. No aunties dropping unsolicited advice. No siblings available to come over and help you fight a stubborn cupboard. No grandma handing out “Try God” proverbs when rent is late.

Just two people, one prepaid phone plan, winter shoes from Walmart, and a shared sense of “We must make this work.”

Kunle and Ada learned each other quickly:

• Kunle discovered Ada cries when she’s overwhelmed but wipes her face quickly like she owes the tears rent.

• Ada learned Kunle becomes a motivational speaker when broke (“Babe, what is money? Money is a social construct. Let us construct ours.”).

• They both learned that the real fight in the relationship was not between them — it was between them and Canada’s paperwork.

They fell in love in transit — between job rejections, transit delays, and shared shawarma in downtown Toronto. Their first “date” was a walk to the Service Ontario office because Ada needed a replacement health card. They held hands in the queue. It was romantic. In a bureaucratic, Ontario sort of way.

A Partnership Built in Real Time

Their love wasn’t fireworks. It was survival. It was choosing each other on days when:

• the cold felt personal

• the banks felt suspicious

• the job market felt like a bad joke

• and the loneliness hummed at a frequency only immigrants can hear

Two suitcases. One future.
A reminder that sometimes, the deepest love stories happen not in candlelight restaurants, but in basement apartments where the heater complains, the neighbours argue, and two people choose each other anyway.