48 years ago, Tomas Yudai moved to Winnipeg, Canada, and after a lonely first week where he saw snow for the first time, looked up Filipino names in the phone book just to find someone to socialize with—and ended up finding his wife, Carrie. Millennials like to complain about how difficult it is to date on Tinder, but swiping right sure beats guessing who in the white pages might be from your country (the first few people he called turned out to be Portuguese). The CBC's Teghan Baudette interviewed the couple, who have a lot of lessons from their 46-year marriage that young people could use today.
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Eventually, someone picked up Tomas' cold calls: his future wife's roommate. Tomas must have had a suave phone game, because, as he recalls, "She says, 'Come over, you know, we're having a party.' So I said, 'Great,' you know, 'Thank you,' and I got the address." He forgot to get the time, however, so he showed up early to find Carrie coming out of the bathroom in a towel. Meet cute? Check.
The party involved "a lot of single nurses and doctors," and according to Carrie, Tomas immediately "started flirting with all of the nurses." Tomas claims not to recall that, but to be fair, he also admits to not really noticing Carrie for a while, despite their introduction. According to him, she "didn't even register," which is the kind of thing you can only get away with saying after 46 years of marriage (he also declined to give an opinion on what he originally thought of her appearance).
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Nevertheless, he registered with her. Carrie was dating a doctor at the time and working as a nurse, as many Filipino women did. In fact, she points out, there were many more Filipino women in the city than men (the Philippines is one of the world's leading producer of nurses). Tomas, who had gotten his degree in economics and agriculture in California after growing up in the Philippines, was a catch (no word on what happened to that other doctor).
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She kept calling him and inviting Tomas out to parties, and eventually he got the hint. On Dec. 26, 1967, they shared their first kiss. "Well, you know, there's one man for 25 women so you kiss him and that's it," explained Carrie, who admitted to being quite possessive and jealous at times of Tomas. Lock it down, girl.
Fast-forward half a century, and what do they credit for their long marriage? Their individuality. They keep their own hobbies (gardening for Carrie, computers for Tomas) and sometimes they even travel separately. "We have a strong sense of" Tomas said before Carrie finished for him "who we are."
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"Yeah," Tomas continued, "who you are as an individual rather than us together." See the full interview with even more anecdotes over at the CBC.
Related: 13 celebrity couples whose marriages are so stable you forgot they were together.
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