QUPID Love Story - Ella Haynes and Ahmed Tony

13 February 2025

“I started my BA History degree at Queen Mary in September 2016, whilst Ahmed had received a Chevening Scholarship and chose to study for his LLM in International Law at the same time.

We first started talking as a result of freshers’ groups before Ahmed had even arrived in London from Egypt. A WhatsApp group was set up and we just got talking there, and we then agreed to meet on my first day on campus. We decided to meet at The Curve for a coffee.

Before starting at Queen Mary, neither of us would have expected to find love, especially not with each other. We come from very different cultures, with me being from London and Ahmed coming from Cairo. Studying at Queen Mary brought us together and made us realise just how much you can have in common despite differences in background, culture and language.

We actually started off as friends, slowly spending more and more time together as the year went on. We visited places around London that Ahmed had never been to before, and even some places that I had never visited despite spending all my life in London. Ahmed also introduced me to Egyptian food for the first time.

By the end of Ahmed’s LLM, we knew there was something more there, but we didn’t think it was practical to pursue it since Ahmed was returning to Egypt. We parted ways, although it wasn’t long before we decided to give things a go and attempt a long-distance relationship.

Queen Mary brought us together and made us realise just how much you can have in common despite differences in background, culture and language.

Ahmed returned to his work as a public prosecutor in Egypt, and I stayed at Queen Mary until I graduated in 2019, making many trips to Egypt during my university breaks. In 2019, Ahmed earned a fellowship in Washington DC, so when I graduated, I took three months out to stay with him in the States before returning to London to start a role in internal audit for local government.

At the end of 2020, I decided to take a leap of faith and move to Egypt. It was a big decision and a super difficult one to make, but it was completely necessary if we were going to make things work. We stayed in Cairo until November 2022, which is when we moved to the United Arab Emirates. We are still here today, with Ahmed working as a partner in a law firm and me working for a popular lifestyle and wellness membership platform in the Gulf.

Meeting Ahmed introduced me to a language and culture I hadn’t had much experience with. As a result, in my final year I took a module on modern Egyptian history and also started taking evening Arabic classes on campus, where I learned to read, write and speak Arabic. This gave me a great foundation for when I eventually moved there.

We have many memories from our time at Queen Mary, and we regularly visit London to see my family, so we’re always reminded of the good times we had there. Every so often we visit the campus and the surrounding areas, and Victoria Park is one of our favourite places.

Thank you for reading our story!”