Emma Wilson, 28

Hi, I’m Emma! I’m twenty-eight, I teach grade three at an elementary school just off Commercial Drive, and I have strong opinions about which Vancouver brewery makes the best sour beer. Fair warning: I will talk your ear off about both of those things, and honestly about a lot of other things too, because I am one of those people who just loves people.

I grew up in North Vancouver, the middle kid of three, in a house that always smelled like my mom’s baking and my dad’s attempts at homebrewing that never quite worked out. My older brother is an engineer in Toronto and my little sister is finishing her nursing degree at BCIT, and the three of us still do a group video call every Sunday night that my mom insists on joining for at least the first ten minutes. My parents are the kind of people who showed up to every single one of my soccer games with a thermos of hot chocolate for the whole team, and I think that’s where I got this deep belief that small acts of care actually matter. Teaching felt inevitable, honestly. I did my BEd at SFU, and I still get a little thrill every September when I tape fresh name tags onto twenty-four tiny desks.

My classroom is my happy place, even on the chaotic days. Last month one of my students, Maya, decided that our class goldfish needed a birthday party, and somehow I ended up spending my lunch hour helping eight-year-olds make tiny paper hats for a fish. The fish, Gerald, survived. Barely. Moments like that are why I do this job. I also run the school’s little garden club, where we grow tomatoes and herbs in raised beds behind the portable classrooms, and every spring we do a field trip to the VanDusen Botanical Garden, which is basically my version of Disneyland.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment on Commercial Drive, above a little bookshop, and I am obsessed with my neighborhood. The Drive is this wonderful, slightly scruffy, endlessly alive stretch where you can buy Ethiopian spices, get a tattoo, and argue about Italian coffee all within two blocks. My Saturday ritual is non-negotiable: I walk down to Prado Cafe for a flat white, browse the shelves at the bookshop downstairs from my place, and then do the Trout Lake loop, usually twice, because the off-leash dogs there make me ridiculously happy even though I don’t have one of my own yet. Someday. A rescue, probably, with a goofy name.

Cycling is my other great love. I ride the Stanley Park seawall at least twice a week, and there’s this specific moment, right around Third Beach at sunset, where the light hits the water and downtown glows behind you, and I think, okay, this is why I could never leave this city. I’ve done the Gran Fondo from Vancouver to Whistler twice, and both times I cried a little at the finish line, once from exhaustion and once because a stranger handed me a beer. My bike is a slightly battered turquoise road bike named Geraldine, after the goldfish, long story.

And yes, the craft breweries. My friends and I have a standing Friday tradition of working our way through the city’s taprooms. Parallel 49 for the playful stuff, Strange Fellows for the weird and wonderful sours, Powell Street for the classics. I keep a little notebook where I rate every beer I try, which my friends find deeply embarrassing and which I find deeply scientific. I can also make a genuinely excellent soft pretzel from scratch, a skill I learned during a very rainy February when I watched too many baking videos.

What am I looking for? Someone kind first, everything else second. I want a partner who is curious about the world, who will bike the seawall with me on a Sunday morning and then happily debate whether the new IPA at Brassneck is better than the old one. I love deep conversations about everything and nothing, long walks with no destination, and people who are good to service staff. Bonus points if you can handle being quizzed by my grade threes about what you do for a living, because they will absolutely interrogate you, and they show no mercy. I’m not in a rush, but I know what a good thing feels like, and I’m ready for it. If you’re someone who still gets excited about the little things, a perfect sunset, a great song on the radio, the first sip of coffee, I think we’d get along just fine.