In 2009, Celeste Zendler and Schuler Benson didn’t know each other. In fact, they lived hundreds of miles apart; Zendler lived in Colorado, and Benson lived in Arkansas.
And yet somehow, when Benson checked his Facebook on his phone one day, he found that it wasn’t his Facebook account at all. It was Zendler’s. Some network glitch had logged him into her account unbeknownst to her.
After unsuccessfully trying multiple times to log out of her account, Benson began posting random statuses via Zendler's account to get her attention.
It wasn't until Zendler sent Benson a friend request that Benson was able to log out of the stranger's account.
Zendler planned to unfriend Benson after a few days, but changed her mind when she saw the two had a lot in common. They began to chat online, and met in person for the first time four years later in 2013. A year later, they were engaged.
Now-- six years after the initial cyber meeting-- the two have gotten married.
Schuler proposed to Benson where they met—on Facebook.
"In the fall of 2009, Facebook already had over 175 million users. Rounding down, the odds of us connecting were less than 1 in 175,000,000. Statistically speaking, you're about 300 times more likely to be struck by lightning. You're more likely to be bitten by a shark… on land. And you're about as likely to win the Powerball Jackpot… with the exact same numbers as someone else," he wrote. He continues: "Celeste, I'm hacking into your Facebook account for the second time (on purpose for the first time ;)) to ask you a question. In a sea of millions of people going in millions of different directions, without even knowing we were looking, we found one another. You are truly my other half, and I want us to be with each other, in love, always. Will you marry me?"
Read more about the Bensons' story in a post that Schuler wrote online.
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