A 58-year-old CFO from Texas has resigned after matching on Tinder with an employee 36 years his junior.
Rick met Alyssa Cleland, 22, in 2018 on a dating app while she was working for the land surveying firm where he was the chief financial officer.
Alyssa was first hesitant to combine her professional and personal lives. However, after meeting for lunch, the two immediately realised they had considerably more in common than just work, and they ended up speaking for four hours.
In the video below, learn more about this couple:
Rick then admitted that he had seen Alyssa before their match. He hadn’t realised it was her profile he was looking at when he swiped right.
Rick said “Right out of the gate, when the company I worked for hired her, I kind of noticed her. And she sort of stood apart from everybody else, because she had this energy. But the thing is, for whatever reason I didn’t connect that picture and her profile with the girl from work.”
Alyssa, on the other hand, had immediately recognised him
She said I messaged him because I recognised him immediately and I was like, ‘What are you doing? We can’t date’
Rick was concerned that Alyssa would feel he had purposefully exploited his position of responsibility after discovering who she was, and proposed they meet for lunch to clear the air.
Rick also explained “If I’m the person in the corner office, I’ve got a lot to lose, and here’s someone who’s just started.
You can’t do that in a business setting. You just can’t because if she isn’t interested, it will feel like a hostile workplace, as if this guy is abusing his power or authority, and I don’t want to add to that.
And it wasn’t simply that we worked together; I was the CEO of a firm with 200 workers.“
However, the chemistry between them was undeniable, and things moved swiftly after that. Rick left the company six weeks later, and they began dating.
Rick, who previously was married and raised stepchildren, explained:
We started seeing each other virtually every day once we started seeing each other. It was like, “Boom, Boom, Boom,” and we accelerated swiftly.
It was only a few months later, and she was having problems with her roommates, so I told her to “just move in.” That was the end of it.
The lovebirds have been dating for more than a year and are said to be in it for the long haul, with the decades separating them having no bearing on their sentiments.
Alyssa explained:
Rick has definitely captured my heart. At this point, all I’m waiting for is a ring. I’m in for the long term if it means changing his diapers. Tomorrow, I could get hit by a car.
No one knows how long we have left on this planet. So, despite him becoming older and faster, I believe that all we can do is spend it with the people we love.
The pair believes that one of the reasons they get along so well is that they both have similar ambitions for the future.
Rick explained:
Even though I’ve been married and raised children and all that, it’s just me and my life is mine to do with as I choose. And someone like Alyssa fits in perfectly since she lives there.
Alyssa went on to say:
We talked about our future plans, and we both agreed that we don’t want children. Personally, I am not interested in having children.
In terms of careers and ambitions, we’re on the same page, and I’ve been told I’m quite mature for my age and other such things.
Alyssa credits her maturity to her challenging background. Alyssa was born in the Ukraine with a rare congenital abnormality called paraxial tibia hemimelia before relocating to the United States as a young girl.
As Alyssa puts it:
[Paraxial tibia hemimelia] affects one out of every million people, and it means that my tibia – the major lower leg bone – did not grow. As a result, I was unable to walk, and my leg was amputated as a result of this.
I’m an amputee with a right above-knee amputation. According to what we know, my mother was quite young and couldn’t care for me, thus I ended up in a Ukrainian hospital. I was supposed to pass away. And I spent a year in the hospital before being placed in an orphanage.
Alyssa has been wearing prostheses since she was four years old, after being adopted by an American family, which she claims forced her to grow up’really fast.’
She went on to say:
That’s why I believe we’ll work; simply because I’m not like other 20-year-olds – and I’ve dated other 20-year-olds before and had no problems. But, you know, there’s something you stated about dating an older person and the life experience you receive from it, and I like that.
Rick had this to say regarding Alyssa’s maturity:
It wouldn’t work if she was a standard 22-year-old – ‘Hey, it’s eight o’clock, where are we going?’ I’m going to bed at ten o’clock.
I don’t notice a difference in age. The way we communicate with one another, just ordinary conversation and interaction, and how we react to one another, is very compatible – it just works.
Rick and Alyssa have our warmest wishes for the future.
