David Kirp and Niko Laine were married Feb. 2 at their San Francisco home. Steven Sugarman, a Universal Life minister and friend of the couple, officiated.
Mr. Kirp (right), 74, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a freelance writer and an author of 15 books, including “The College Dropout Crisis” (Oxford), which is to be published this fall. He was a member of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential transition team. He graduated from Amherst College.
He is the son of the late Ruth Clair Kirp and the late Murray Kirp, who lived in Bay Shore, N.Y.
Mr. Kirp’s first marriage ended in divorce.
Mr. Laine, 38, is a freelance financial consultant based in Helsinki, Finland. He graduated from Mercuria Business College in Helsinki, and is a candidate for a master’s degree in business law at Aalto University, Finland, also in Helsinki.
He is the son of Eija Lehto of Turenki, Finland, and the late Jari Laine, who lived in Helsinki.
Mr. Kirp and Mr. Laine met through a dating site in Helsinki in June 2017 on the last day that Mr. Kirp was visiting there with a friend.
“We talked and talked and talked,” said Mr. Kirp, who finally decided to meet Mr. Laine in person before leaving Finland.
Mr. Laine described their long conversation as “really intelligent.”
“I was completely intrigued by David,” he said.
So intrigued, in fact, that two months later Mr. Laine boarded a plane for San Francisco to visit Mr. Kirp. They had already spent numerous hours chatting by phone and Skype before Mr. Laine arrived at Mr. Kirp’s home, where he stayed for two weeks.
“I got to know him quite well during that time,” Mr. Laine said. “I found him to be a warm, kind and very interesting person who shared many of the things I most enjoy in life, including food, art and travel.”
Two weeks later, Mr. Kirp returned the favor, visiting Mr. Laine in Paris, where he was working on his master’s degree as an exchange student at nearby Essec Business School in Cergy-Pontoise, France.
“It was 10 days of complete bliss,” Mr. Kirp said.
“I’m an intuition guy, and I began to get the feeling right away that this was a special kind of thing we had going on,” he added. “It wasn’t long before Niko became my romantic best friend and confidant, and we formed a warm relationship that ultimately became a very comfortable place for me.”
They began a long-distance affair that included getting together in San Francisco, Paris and Helsinki, where Mr. Kirp proposed in July 2018.
“We still split our time in those three cities,” Mr. Laine said. “The fact that they are all very liberal places makes life so much easier for the two of us.”
But even in those cities, Mr. Kirp said, “people who see this older man walking with his arm around a much younger man often stop and stare; we notice that they are noticing.”
When asked if their 36-year age disparity had ever factored into their decision to get married, Mr. Kirp said, “Look, at my age, I wasn’t expecting to get married, but relationships take on a whole bunch of different forms.”
“We discussed the fact that in all likelihood, Niko will be a widower at a young age because he is marrying a guy much older,” Mr. Kirp added. “We don’t know what’s in store, but what we do know is that we are two grown-ups at different points in our lives with careers, and that what we have together just works.”
Mr. Laine admitted that the great number of years between them “was more of a concern for me at first.”
“Moving forward, I had to factor in our age difference analytically,” he said. “I had a choice: Did I want to be fully happy right now and suffer some consequence down the road, or did I want to eventually marry someone a lot younger who I know I wouldn’t have been as happy with?”
“I chose to be happy now, and I chose to share my happiness with David.”
VINCENT M. MALLOZZI
