Sarah Cohen, 29

Hi there, I’m Sarah. Twenty-nine, a corporate lawyer living in The Annex in Toronto, in a character-filled walk-up on a tree-lined street where I can hear the streetcar rumble past and honestly find it comforting. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for six years and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.

I grew up in Forest Hill in a close, loving Jewish family — Friday night Shabbat dinners at my parents’ house are still sacred, and I try never to miss them. My dad’s a dentist, my mom runs a small interior design business, and my younger sister Talia is a teacher in Ottawa. Our family group chat is extremely active and mostly consists of my mom sending photos of other people’s grandchildren with captions like “just saying.” The guilt is loving, and it works. I went to day school, spent summers at camp in Muskoka, and those camp friendships are still my inner circle — we have a cottage weekend every August that I plan with military precision.

Law school at U of T was intense but I loved the rigor of it, and now I’m an associate at a Bay Street firm doing corporate law. Yes, the hours can be long, but I genuinely enjoy the work — structuring deals, negotiating, the satisfaction of a clean closing. My colleagues joke that I color-code my files, which is true and I’m not ashamed. Last year I worked on a transaction that closed at 2 a.m. and we all ate cold pizza in the boardroom; it sounds miserable but there’s a weird camaraderie in those moments that I actually treasure.

But I’m not all briefs and billable hours, I promise. Yoga is my anchor — I practice vinyasa four mornings a week at a studio near Bloor and Bathurst, and it’s the one appointment I never let work move. It started as exercise in law school and became something much deeper; it’s where I process everything. I’m also a hopeless brunch enthusiast. My standing order at my favorite Annex café is a toasted everything bagel with lox and cream cheese — and yes, I have strong opinions about bagels. St-Urbain on Harbord is my go-to for a proper Montreal-style bagel, and I will happily debate bagel superiority with anyone.

The Annex itself is half my personality at this point. I love the bookshops on Bloor, the Honest Ed’s nostalgia that still lingers in the neighborhood’s spirit, Saturday mornings at the farmers’ market picking up challah and flowers. In the summer I read in Christie Pits park; in the winter I’m a regular at the Hot Docs cinema on Bloor, wrapped in my longest coat with popcorn. I volunteer once a month at a legal aid clinic, which keeps me grounded and reminds me why I went into law in the first place. I also recently joined a women’s mentorship circle through the firm, which has been unexpectedly wonderful — there’s something powerful about a room of women lawyers sharing war stories and wine. Outside of all that, I’m a devoted TIFF-goer every September; I take the Friday off, buy a stack of tickets, and emerge three days later having cried at at least two foreign films.

My friends would describe me as the planner — the one with the spreadsheet for the cottage weekend, the restaurant reservations, the group trip to Montreal. But I’m also the one who’ll stay up until 3 a.m. helping you talk through a breakup, or show up with soup when you’re sick. I take relationships seriously, romantic or otherwise. Loyalty matters enormously to me.

So what am I looking for? A partner with a good heart and a sharp mind. Someone who values family the way I do — who’ll happily join my loud, loving Shabbat table and tease my mom right back. I want the full package: intellectual sparring over dinner, lazy Sunday mornings with the papers and coffee, long walks through the Annex in the fall when the leaves turn. Ambition is attractive to me, but character is everything — how you treat people when no one’s watching tells me who you are. I believe in building a life together deliberately: shared values, shared laughter, and a home that’s warm in every sense. If you’re kind, driven, a little bit funny, and you understand that Friday nights are non-negotiable family time, we should definitely talk.