Fun Monday: How I Met My Mate
This week on Fun Monday, Janet asked to hear how we met our mates. Being that today is the 6-month anniversary of our marriage, what a great opportunity to share the Match.com ad that originally introduced us. Plus, I promised on National Delurking Day to post this…
First, let me give a brief background. If a girl puts an ad on an online dating site, she has to sometimes filter the responses heavily. I received messages from all types - even some that I could tell were mass emails sent to everyone. So I came up with a list of requirements:
- The guy must be older than me, preferably around 4 years. That would mean I was 24 and he would be 28.
- The guy must have a college degree. I was applying for masters degree programs at that time, and I wanted someone who could understand what I was going through.
- He could not be military. I lived about an hour away from a military base so this ruled out a lot.
- He must not list his salary - I just thought this was conceited.
So then I receive this response from a guy who said that I turned up as the #1 person in his list week after week and he finally decided to respond. Here are the highlights from his ad.
I checked out his ad - he failed 3 of my 4 requirements, and he looked kind of arrogant in his photo. I do not like chaos; I am not a thrill seeker, and I didn’t eat much foreign food then. And we won’t even get into his lack of grammar skills… I put his email in the Do Not Reply folder.
Luckily, a few months later, we crossed paths on another online site - this time a friend’s online journal. He recognized my username and matched my profile, and talked with the mutual friend to introduce us. We did, and the rest is history.
If you’d like to read more about our adventures in meeting online, I documented it in an earlier Fun Monday post. Feel free to check it out.
Posted in Fun Monday
Because of our going to college break up, I destroyed all of our correspondence with each other from first date to then. I’ve always regretted that but you know what they say about a woman scorned.
So great you have this record.
My husband and I also met on a dating site. :) We met almost 6 years ago, after I stood him up first.
Since your paths crossed again, this almost seems like fate. If he is indeed the sort of person that smile after a car accident, he sounds like a keeper.
MJD - I agree with the fate thing. After getting together, we discovered that we had crossed paths in high school too years before. We had both grown up in the same town in South Florida. Our brothers had gone to school together, and we had several mutual friends.
totally meant to be! great story and i love that you posted his ad. that’s adorable ;-)
Indeed, I’m speechless. THIS piece of PR would have sounded irreparable and would have failed with anyone looking for a mate! Now the next topic: how did the great transformation take place?
Ah, the newest frontier for meeting people… I’m glad it worked out for you. My cousin is using the internet for meeting men and it seems to be working for her too. I suppose that if anything ever happened to my Darling Man, I would check that out too!
How cool….an online ‘romance’, I’ve read so much positive on this aspect. Great share, and love your writing style, with the ad and all—gave us readers a great perspective.
it sure was fate seeing as you put him in the no reply pile!
I guess despite failing your list of criteria, it was a good thing you responded. A dark headed Swede? Who knew?
My hubby also failed most of my criteria. In fact, about 95% of them! But here we are. I guess it shows we’ll find what we need, even if we really don’t know what it is!
If any of us really knew who we were looking for, we wouldn’t have so many Mr. Wrongs! How nice that y’all took the time to get to know each other.
Going through my head right now is “you can’t always get what you want….you get what you NEED”! I’m glad it all worked out so well for you both!
My hubby failed a lot of my prior criteria - of course, when I moved to Arkansas, my criteria fell to “Hair, job and teeth.”
I’m laughing at Tiggerlane’s requirements… ha ha ha ha.
well, you have to admit that he had the one requirement that you overlooked, and that was persistence in his goal (you)
I’m glad he had hair job and teeth, too
I really amazed at how many of the stories are internet related!
Wow…lots of online dating stories for this Fun Monday. Your story shows that you can’t always read the book by its cover. Glad it worked out in the end.
Oh how funny at first you didn’t want to reply to him at all! It was meant to be! Happy 6month anniversary!
I broke my rule…never date anyone I meet at work!
Hey, I live close to Cary…
Great story…