We Met Online

In honor of Valentine’s Day I’d like to share the story of how I met my Sweetie. I’ve posted about our relationship before and I still stand by the opinion that he’s the craziest man on the planet. But I never really mentioned how we met.

Back in March 2002, I was in the middle of a long, drawn out divorce that I thought would never end and I was emotionally living day-to-day. One Sunday, I had a particularly rough day and my mom tried to make me feel better by pointing me to the future. She told me that she and Pops would be around to watch the boys when I met someone new and wanted to date. I replied that I didn’t want anything to do with men.

Unruffled, Mom suggested that we make a list of the qualities I would like to see in a man. Her first question was, “What color hair?” I replied that hair was optional because my brother is bald and I think he’s a pretty great guy. So we focused on the personality characteristics. That was fairly easy because all I had to do was think of the opposite of my ex-husband. This is list we complied:

Sweet, Kind, Loving
Family-oriented
Believe in God
Goofy sense of humor
Intelligent
Like the water
Like dogs
Not in the military

At this point, Mom interrupted and said that it wasn’t fair to make a blanket statement about the military. After all, my father served in the Navy before my parents got married. So I amended my statement and said that prior service in the Navy was okay.

Mom asked, “Anything else?” I added that he should donate to charity regularly. She asked, “What kind of charity?” And I replied, “I don’t know. Something like Habitat for Humanity.”

Then it was my turn to ask a question, “So where do I find this guy?” And Mom confidently answered, “On the internet. You can find anything on the internet!”

That night after the kids went to bed, I jumped online and went to Match.com. For weeks I had seen ads for Match.com on my Yahoo email. I thought, “What the heck?”

I set up an account on Match.com and paused. I decided that if I was going to this, then I was going to do it for real. I answered every single survey question honestly. I answered truthfully about myself and I thought seriously about what I wanted in a friend and potential mate.

After the account set-up and survey, I was able to search for matches. Instantly, my Sweetie came up as a 100% match. I quickly logged off and walked away from the computer. A few minutes later I came back, logged on, and searched again. Once again 100% match. Nervously, I clicked on his profile and read. My heart was pounding the entire time. I literally fell out of my chair when I read the sentence about S and his dad volunteering for Habitat for Humanity each year.

For a day or two I continued to read my Sweetie’s profile. Finally, I got up the nerve to send him a message through the Match.com system. I didn’t hear anything for about three days. I assumed that he wasn’t interested. Then I got a reply. He had been working like crazy for a week and hadn’t checked his personal email the entire time.

The rest, they say, is history.

Oh, and by the way, my Sweetie served in the Navy. He and my father did the same exact job… only there was a 35-year difference in technology.