Yes, we met online

I am watching Bravo reality TV, no big shock there.  Though a commercial just came on comparing online dating sites.  Comparing a site that you don’t pay for vs. one that you do.  That got me thinking about our love story.  Coming up on our 4 year anniversary of when we first spoke, I love to reminisce about those first few days/weeks.

Let’s rewind 4 years.   I was a single mother of two children.  They were with me from Wednesday morning through Monday morning.  My only days free to go out with friends or dates, were Monday and Tuesday nights.  Not exactly the right days to go out and meet someone.  Not your typical date nights and certainly not when the majority of people are out on the town.  

I knew that I was ready to meet someone.  My heart was healed and I wanted to start putting myself out there.  As a single Mom with very little disposable income, I decided to try my luck on OKcupid.  I figured that it couldn’t hurt.  Lucky for me at the time, I had no clue Catfish was a thing.  Knowing me, this definitely would have detoured me from giving online dating a shot.

There were a couple of guys that sent me messages, attempting to strike up conversation with me.  After asking my typical questions, they were very quickly weeded out.  Now, you’d have to ask my husband now, but I like to think that my profile was as accurate as I could make it.  It was extremely open, honest and up front.  I had written about who I was, what I had gone through and what I was looking for.  Like in my everyday life, I gave WAY too much information.  Hoping to weed people out before they even tried to talk to me.

After having my profile up on OKCupid for 13 days, I woke up to a fairly long message. I don’t remember exactly what it said, I wish I had thought to copy it.  Little did I know that it would be the first communication I would receive from my husband.  

The thing that I really hated about my messages from other people, were that they asked questions that I had answered in my profile.  I mean…read it…that’s why I wrote it!  Paul didn’t do this, he took the things I had written in my profile and related them to his own life.  One, he liked that I had kids because he did too and, he too had been cheated on in a previous relationship.

I messaged him right back and the dialogue began.  We went back and forth a couple of times before Paul had to leave for work.  While at work he messaged me just a couple more times, one time asking for my number.  I gave it to him.  He called me after he got off work that night.  Most men only wanted to text you all day every day, Paul wanted to have a real phone conversation.  

That first night a Wednesday, we spoke on the phone from about 10:30 until past 2am.  We talked about who we were, what we were looking for and the conversation was just so natural and effortless.  It was hard to hang up the phone.  Once we did, I text him and said goodnight.  The next night it happened again, after a day of consistent conversation.  

That Friday I left for my girls weekend, telling Paul that we wouldn’t speak much because I was going to be busy.  Well, I found myself wanting to tell him about the events of my day.  We stayed in contact over the following the three days.  Once I got home on Sunday, I knew I needed to meet him.  I invited him to come over once the kids were asleep.  He came over and stayed for a few hours.  From that day on we found a way to see each other every few days for the next couple of months.

I remember when I first started dating a guy that I met online, I was a little embarrassed to tell people that was how we met.  Who knows exactly when that stigma wore off, but it did.  I found myself start telling people that we met on OKcupid and being ok with it.  Since then, quite a few of my friends have found their current spouses on the same site.  

At the time, it seemed unconventional.  With smartphones, apps and the Internet in the palm of your hand; it is just “normal” now.  Normal to meet someone online, whether by dating website or social media.  Whatever works for you.  I find myself thankful for OKcupid.  A free dating site, where I could invest my time and my energy into meeting someone, but not my money.