Within 10 minutes of his first date with Dr. Jamila Scarlett Wynter in 2018, Phillip Damon Jones announced his intention to move back to Newport News, Va., to run for mayor in four years.
“Where’s Newport News?” she asked as they sipped mojitos on the rooftop of Felipe’s Taqueria in Cambridge, Mass, on a late Saturday afternoon during Memorial Day weekend.
Mr. Jones, 34, then a captain training newly commissioned officers in war fighting tactics at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, grew up in Hampton Roads, Va., and later moved to neighboring Newport News with his parents, who had served as U.S. Air Force pilots.
“I wanted to give back,” he said. “I wanted the entire city to reach its full potential.”
A month earlier, when they matched on the Hinge dating app, Dr. Wynter, 33, had no clue that Mr. Jones even lived in Virginia.
“We were equally yoked,” said Dr. Wynter, who grew up in Atlanta and Montego Bay, Jamaica, and liked the mix of photos he had posted — in a military uniform with his medals, hiking, and in a tuxedo.
As they began texting, he explained that he had switched the app’s location to the Boston area from Virginia while he stayed with a friend in Cambridge, and visited Harvard, where he was headed that August. He forgot to switch it back.
