Priya Sharma, 27

Hey there, I’m Priya! Twenty-seven, born and raised in Brampton, and now happily settled in a sunny second-floor apartment above a roti shop on Queen West in Toronto. If you ever walk past on a Saturday morning and smell fresh parathas drifting up through my windows, that’s basically my alarm clock, and honestly, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

My parents came to Canada from Delhi in the late nineties with two suitcases and a whole lot of courage. My dad works in IT, my mom is an elementary school teacher in Peel, and they are the warmest, funniest people I know. Growing up, our house was the unofficial community center on our street — aunties dropping by unannounced, the pressure cooker whistling at all hours, and my mom feeding literally everyone who walked through the door. I used to roll my eyes at the chaos as a teenager, but now I drive back to Brampton most Sundays just to sit in that noisy kitchen and feel at home again. My little brother, Arjun, is twenty-three and finishing his engineering degree at Waterloo, and he still calls me for life advice and then pretends he didn’t.

Work-wise, I’m a marketing manager at a mid-sized agency near King and Spadina, where I run campaigns for food and lifestyle brands. It’s the kind of job where one day I’m storyboarding a commercial and the next I’m taste-testing a client’s new snack line for “research purposes.” I genuinely love it — I get to be creative and analytical at the same time, and my team is this wonderful mix of people from everywhere. Last year I led a campaign that got shortlisted for a national award, and my mom told the entire extended family in India before I even got home from work that day. Classic.

My biggest passion outside work is dance. I’ve been doing Bollywood and semi-classical dance since I was six, and I take classes twice a week at a studio in Etobicoke. There’s something about a good dhol beat that just resets my whole brain after a long day of meetings. I also perform with a small troupe at community events during Diwali and Navratri, and dancing on stage in a lehenga while my parents cheer embarrassingly loudly from the front row is one of my favorite feelings in the world.

And then there’s Kensington Market, my absolute happy place in this city. Every other Saturday I’m there, wandering from the vintage shops to the cheese place to the taco stand, ending up at the same little café for a proper masala chai — adrak wali, extra strong. I have a whole ritual: blueberry buns from the bakery, a lap around the garden car to look at the art, and then I sit on a bench with my chai and people-watch for an hour. If you come with me once, you’ll understand.

When I’m not dancing or wandering markets, I’m usually cooking (my rajma is undefeated, just ask my friends), rewatching old Bollywood classics with my best friend Neha, or attempting to keep my balcony plants alive — my monstera is thriving, the basil is touch and go. I’m also slowly learning to skate; last winter I spent more time sitting on the ice at Nathan Phillips Square than actually moving, but this year is my year. Probably. My best friend Neha and I have a standing tradition of trying a new restaurant on the Danforth every month — we’ve worked through Greek, Ethiopian, and a shockingly good Tibetan place so far. She says I’m the only person she knows who plans vacations around food markets, and she’s not wrong: my Lisbon trip last spring was basically a five-day eating tour with some sightseeing accidentally included.

What am I looking for? Someone kind, first and foremost. Someone who laughs easily, treats service staff well, and isn’t intimidated by a big, loud, loving Indian family that will adopt you within one dinner. Ambition matters to me — I want a partner who’s building something they’re proud of — but so does softness: long walks along the Harbourfront, deep conversations over chai, being each other’s calm. I believe in real partnership, shared playlists, and never going to bed mid-argument. If you can handle spice, both in food and in life, and you think the best Saturday is equal parts adventure and cozy, we might just get along beautifully.