Pen Pals Who Met After 7 Years Tell Their Love Story

Seven years ago, Mackenzie Udani and Fiachra Schusterovi were both in their mid-teens with the vast Atlantic Ocean between them.

2015 was a different time: Barack Obama was president of the United States, Ireland had just signed same-sex marriage into law, TikTok (the app where their story would eventually go viral) was a year away from launching, and neither Mackenzie nor Fiachra had been in love before.

While gathered around their respective computers with friends, Mackenzie in Chicago, Fiachra in Sligo, Ireland, each ended up on Omegle, an online chat service that randomly pairs users for one-on-one chat sessions. At the time, both were delightfully unsuspecting of the fact that their random pairing would soon prompt them to become pen pals — or that it would lead to hundreds of hours-long phone calls and texts helping them weather heartache, loss, a worldwide pandemic and later inspire them to fall in love.

Speaking to TODAY, Mackenzie, now 21, and Fiachra, 20, share what it was like to foster a long-distance friendship over several years and later fall in love.

From opposite ends of the world, a strong internet friendship formed

Mackenzie: It was 2015, I was 14 years old and hanging out with one of my friends, and we decided to go on a site called Omegle. We got matched with four boys our age from Ireland. And I remember already off the bat, while I was looking at Fiachra, I was like, "Oh, I like him."

Fiachra: I was 13 at the time and with the lads, and it was late enough. We just hopped on Omegle because it seemed cool ... then found Mackenzie and her friend. Straightaway my first impression was that she was beautiful, and she was really kind and funny.

Mackenzie: We all became friends and exchanged information. We talked as a group pretty much every day after. Eventually, though, our lives just got busier, schedules got in the way, and we couldn’t consistently coordinate times for us all to talk as a group. Fiachra and I never stopped talking, though. Eventually, we started messaging each other separately, catching up on Snapchat and Facebook Messenger.

More than friends?

Fiachra: When we first started chatting, she was actually in a relationship with someone, and we were just friends at that time. I wasn't particularly sad over that, but then that ended.

Mackenzie: The first few months we started talking with each other, we kind of mutually agreed just to remain friends because we knew that it would probably be very difficult for us to kind of make a long-distance relationship work.

Fiachra: We started sending letters to each other. Eventually, the letters became a bit lovey-dovey. It was kind of tough because we were catching feelings for each other, but we’d never met in person. We started to question how realistic it was for us to talk to each other romantically, so we kind of just eased off on chatting for a period of maybe six months. And then we started chatting again.

Becoming a shoulder to lean on

Mackenzie: We really haven’t stopped communication in seven years. There were periods when we didn’t really talk every single day, but we still kept in contact with each other. Then, a year ago, my dad passed away from cancer.

In the early stages of everything, I would be so upset, and I would call Fiachra. It would be like 10 p.m. Chicago time, so 4 a.m. his time, and he would answer, and I would just let everything out. He was always such a good listener. I feel like that’s almost what caused things to develop romantically, finally, because I was seeing how much he was there for me.

Fiachra: I’ve never experienced anything like that myself. Seeing her like that hurt me as well. I hadn’t seen her like that before. I just wanted to be there to listen to her. It was really tough. I can’t imagine how tough losing a parent is, but I just made sure to be there to listen to her.

Mackenzie: After that, the summer of 2021 was when we really started talking more. We started to try to do more things together over the phone. We would work out together or have a meal together. We painted together one time over the phone and did a picnic.

Taking a flight of faith

Mackenzie: Relationship aside, I’ve always wanted to meet him, even if we were friends, because I thought it was such a cool thing we had, that we had kept in contact with each other all this time. He was a really good friend over these years, and I thought it would be cool to go to Ireland and actually meet him.

I booked my tickets in May of this year, and I landed in Dublin on July 18 for an 11-day trip.

Fiachra: We coordinated plans for what we would do while she was visiting, but by the time I got to the airport to pick Mackenzie up, loads of things were going through my head. I didn’t know if we would click as we did while FaceTiming. I was really worried about that.

I was also worried about the logistics of finding her as if I was standing at the right spot. Mackenzie sure took her time coming out as well, I felt like I was there an hour. Maybe it was ten minutes, but it felt like forever.

Making a good impression

Mackenzie: I got off the plane, and the first thing I did was run to the bathroom to fix my hair and makeup. The whole time my hand was shaking.

When I got to arrivals, I remember waiting until like this whole group had passed. I kind of just like waited around for a bit. Then, I got through the door, and I saw him, and it was so crazy. It felt like I was meeting a celebrity, it felt so surreal.

Fiachra: We clicked straightaway, it was just so natural.

Mackenzie: He was holding flowers, which was really cute. Everything after that was so natural. We had our first hug, and I got to hug his sister because she was there, and I’m super close with her, too. It was really nice.

Fiachra: For the first day, we met up with two of the lads that had been in the chat when we met on Omega. We got drinks with them and just chatted away for ages.

Time flies when fun is involved

Mackenzie: The eleven days went by very fast, probably because we were having so much fun doing so many things. We did a lot of walking and eating. We went to the Guinness Storehouse, toured the factory, and even had a Guinness on their rooftop bar. We did a carriage ride and had sushi. At one point, Fiachra bought me an Irish sweater from the Aran sweater shop. From Dublin, we took a train to Carrick to spend time at Fiachra’s house with his parents and family. His parents were extremely kind and welcoming towards me and the easiest people to talk to. I felt like I had known them for years.

Fiachra: My favorite part of the trip was being with Mackenzie. And then after that, just trying out different restaurants and hotels and stuff. I introduced her to my friends and my family, and they all loved her. It was all great.

Reflecting on a strong connection (that also went viral)

Mackenzie: I left on July 28. Fiachra was with me all the way up until security when I had to leave him. We stood in front of security, stalling until we finally had to rip it off the Band-Aid. We hugged one last time. As I walked away, I turned around probably every five seconds to wave goodbye to him.

Fiachra: Tears? No, definitely not. Not at all.

Mackenzie: On the way back to Chicago, I couldn’t sleep, I was so wired, so I thought to put together a video compilation from the trip. I was originally going to keep the video to myself, then I thought to post it to TikTok so my friends could see what I made.

I had maybe 10 followers on there at that point. I posted it, and it took a day to reach a million. And then, the next day, it just kept going to like 2 million and then 3 million.

Fiachra: I came back home from work, and Mom and Dad were like, “Oh, your story was on the radio.”

Mackenzie: It’s touching that so many people are rooting for us and liked our story. I think it's a reminder that you can have a friendship with someone; it doesn’t matter what the distance is if your friendship is strong enough.

Our personalities work well together. We found that we have like the same sense of humor. We both share the same dry humor. We’ve always been pretty sarcastic with each other, and sometimes sarcasm isn’t always received well by others. Fiachra not only understands my sarcasm but can keep up. I love that we are able to be goofy around each other.

Fiachra: She’s the funniest person.

Mackenzie: I feel like we’re ready to face whatever like life throws at us and whatever difficulties come our way.

Making it work

Fiachra: We’re looking forward to when I can come to her in America. I plan to go soon, like next summer. I’m saving up now, working away. I’m taking the year off of school to work so that I can save and go see her.

Mackenzie: Actually, we do have a fun update. On Sept. 27, I booked a ticket to Ireland for Dec. 30 to Jan. 10. Neither he nor I have school during that period, and the tickets were relatively inexpensive. I chose to go to Ireland again since I didn’t want him to experience America for the first time in January, especially not January in Chicago. So I thought I would see him, his family, and his friends again and experience Ireland in the winter.

We are beyond excited.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com