We started our relationship long distance with Elaine in Boston and Max in San Francisco. After a bit of trial and error, we found that having a slower tempo back and forth was better for us to be able to focus where God had placed us at the time rather than a frenzy of immediate responses. The only drawback is that without immediate response, radio silence could be a place for dark whispers to grow in second guessing the others’ message.

To combat this, we started texting “I still think you’re pretty neat” back and forth as shorthand for acknowledging the message and that we were still interested in the relationship. For even greater efficiency, “ISTYPN” as an acronym was born.

One day, Max – with far too much idle time on his hands – realized that the domain name istypn.com was still available and spent a bit of time messing around with code. The next time he got a message from Elaine, he sent back http://istypn.com/e/. To this day, it stands as one of the sweetest gifts Elaine has ever received.

Pro tip from Max: Try the wheel on a phone or tablet. It’s much more fun on a touch-screen.