At Taco Bell, a Romance Is Born

I’ve by no means dated within the app period. As a substitute, I met folks the old-school manner: on the pc, specifically by means of the OkCupid web site, the place I glided by the username “tacobellforever.”

On Tinder, you decide somebody first by their identify, age, and photos (proper?). However on OkCupid, your username led. And to me “tacobellforever” made the appropriate first impression: I used to be enjoyable (a Baja Blast, even) and I discovered pleasure in low-brow issues. Anybody who noticed themself as above this might self-select out. Additionally, I used to be a pupil with little cash and no pretend ID; my choices have been restricted. “You have got a brand new message from tacobellforever” — folks would love that!

So when Jon, username redacted, slid into my inbox, it was pure that the dialog drifted to Taco Bell. My desire for the quesarito made me a Taco Bell maximalist, on the hunt for the subsequent and finest. Jon, in the meantime, was a self-described “Taco Bell fundamentalist,” preferring the frugal, no-nonsense potato comfortable taco. (If an affinity for Taco Bell says one thing about you as an individual, so does your Taco Bell order.)

Jon was bummed, he wrote, that there wasn’t a Taco Bell close by. On the time, Boston, the place we each lived, famously didn’t stay más. (Does it now? It does at the least have extra Taco Bells than it did then.) After I broke the information that there was a location tucked right into a mall meals courtroom in Cambridge, it grew to become clear that as an alternative of assembly for espresso, we needed to get Taco Bell. On a chilly evening in 2013, we met up: I ordered my ordinary, he ordered his.

A yr later, we celebrated our anniversary on the similar mall meals courtroom, the identical Taco Bell. Through the years, we have now put away numerous Taco Bell potatoes collectively, sucked down so many shared Baja Blasts, and have usually flashed the “marry me” Hearth Sauce packets at one another — at first as a joke, then ultimately severely. Ten years after that first date, after we’d moved to a special and extra Taco Bell-rich metropolis and had determined, why not get married?, Jon acquired down on one knee, the place else however exterior a Taco Bell.

But this factor that I as soon as thought made Jon and I so foolish and particular is, it seems, not precisely distinctive. I discovered that the Taco Bell the place we met closed by way of Reddit. One of many feedback even learn, “My spouse and I had our first date right here in 2013.” Did I simply discover Jon’s alt? Studying the consumer historical past made it clear that this was a completely completely different couple, who occurred to have met in the identical place on the similar time.

Once I lately interviewed {couples} about their date evening habits, two of them introduced up Taco Bell with none prompting on my finish. “Our first date was at Taco Bell,” one individual even famous. Taco Bell weddings are apparently of sufficient curiosity that the corporate provides them as a ready-to-go Las Vegas “expertise.” And folks have, it appears, certainly used these “marry me” sauce packets severely. What precisely is it about Taco Bell?

I requested Jon why we met at Taco Bell and never, say, at a McDonald’s. “Taco Bell is pleasant,” he stated, including that it’s each scrumptious and just a little cheesy. I’ve by no means actually had affection for McDonald’s, however even when I did, I can’t think about having made my username “mcdonaldsforever,” nor eager to middle a dialog round McDonald’s. That might really feel too earnest one way or the other: McDonald’s simply isn’t very humorous, nor does it point out something fascinating, I believe, about one’s style.

There’s a motive, in spite of everything, that Taco Bell has earned its personal literary journal, the independently run Taco Bell Quarterly, whereas there isn’t a lovingly joking analog known as McDonald’s Month-to-month. (The primary query in Quarterly’s submission tips: “Is that this a joke?” It’s not; there have been seven volumes up to now.)

Taco Bell, in contrast to many different chains, has all the time felt just a little ironic and in by itself joke. Perhaps that is by advantage of its meals, which has by no means been about authenticity however irreverence, the chain inventing its personal ridiculous taxonomy of mash-ups (Mexican pizza, quesarito). Taco Bell isn’t “actual” Mexican meals, however it has all the time, at the least in my lifetime, been realizing about this: A Cheez-It tostada lands at Taco Bell, as a result of its viewers is stoners and foolish folks. Perhaps including to the chain’s cheeky vibe is the truth that for thus lengthy, it was promoted by a speaking chihuahua.

Both manner, Taco Bell has all the time felt just like the shitpost choice. To counsel it because the assembly level for a date feels much less like being low-cost, as I’d really feel if a suitor steered Chick-fil-A or Burger King, and extra like sussing out another person’s style and whether or not they too are additionally just a little goofy and enjoyable and never self-serious. They will just like the intellectual however they’re humble sufficient to simply accept that generally, nothing hits like gooey, processed cheese. Taco Bell is the Haha, however what if? alternative. To like Taco Bell is to additionally pay attention to all of the methods perhaps you shouldn’t love Taco Bell. And but, we are able to’t assist what we love.

Occasions change. The quesarito is not formally on the menu board. The mall the place we met changed its chain-filled meals courtroom with a meals corridor of upscaled choices. We don’t eat Taco Bell as a lot anymore. However Jon and me, that’s endlessly.