|
|
If you get on I-10 and head east from Tallahassee, two plus hours away you’ll be in Jacksonville, Florida. You know how I love love stories, particularly those couples that met online. Here’s one from Jacksonville, and they married in New Orleans, which is on I-10 heading west.
I Do, I Do: Online profile to real-life love
To say that Charles Perniciaro, 52, had become cynical about dating is something of an understatement. “I think he was looking to settle down, but things weren’t coming together for him,” said John Millns, a close friend. “He was getting frustrated.”
In 2007, Charles decided to try online dating. But his cynicism only grew when several women he met on the Internet showed up for a “first date” looking nothing like their online photos. “Those pictures must have been taken decades ago,” said Charles, a dermatologist who was divorced for almost a decade.
In January 2008, Charles read the online profile of Gail Kahler, 47, and found himself intrigued. Gail wrote she “was looking for a guy who loved sports and could also discuss a good book.” Charles knew he fit the bill. The two corresponded for several weeks and eventually met for dinner at St. Johns Town Center where they giggled and chatted the night away.
Charles knew he wanted to see Gail again. Not only did she look exactly like her online photo, he knew they had really enjoyed each other. But Gail was just beginning to date after losing her husband to a long illness, and she told Charles she “planned to date 100 men before she dated anyone twice.” Still, Charles couldn’t let her go that easily. He called Gail the next night and invited her to a dermatology convention in San Antonio that weekend. “I told her there were no strings attached, she would have her own room, and she should come with an extra suitcase because she’d be able to fill it with free samples of creams and things,” he said.
Gail, a fourth-grade teacher at Fort Caroline Elementary, was inclined to say no. But she asked her grown daughter and a close friend what she should do. “And they both said ‘yes,’ “ Gail said. Then Gail checked to make sure Charles was really registered at the convention. He was. In fact, he was giving a seminar. She said yes. “Right from the beginning he swept me off my feet,” Gail said.
The two said “I do” May 30 in New Orleans, where Charles grew up. After the ceremony, the wedding party “second-lined” their way to the reception at Galatois Restaurant. A second line is a parade led by a police escort, then a jazz band (in this case it was a band from Chalmette High School, Charles’ alma mater) followed by the bride, groom and guests, all dancing, all holding parasols, all waving handkerchiefs.
Millns, who served as best man, summed it up this way: “I can’t think of a better ending for two nicer people,” he said.
And she got married! Essence Atkins married the guy she met on Match.com two years ago. If you wonder about the quality of the men and women on dating sites, it’s hard to argue with this pairing:
ESSENCE ATKINS MARRIES HER INTERNET BEAU: Couple jumped the broom Saturday in Pasadena. G. Garvin provided the food.
*Actress Essence Atkins, best known for her role on the UPN sitcom “Half and Half,” has married her boyfriend Jaime Mendez after meeting him less than two years ago through an online dating site.
According to People.com, the wedding took place Saturday at the Ambassador Mansion and Gardens in Pasadena, Calif, The couple met on Valentine’s Day of last year through Match.com.
“I wrote him a quick little note that I had read his profile, and then I signed off, Happy SAD Day – that’s Single Awareness Day,” says Essence, 37. A week later the couple went on their first date, and they were engaged a year later.
The bride wore a Stephen Yearick gown for the ceremony and an Angel Rivera dress for the reception, according to People. “I felt like a princess,” she says.
Her former costar Valerie Pettiford performed original music at the reception. Plus, the bride surprised her husband with a salsa band to celebrate his Puerto Rican heritage.
“We’ve been taking salsa lessons. It’s part of what we’ve been doing together as a couple,” she says.
TV One personality, chef G. Garvin, blended Puerto Rican and traditional soul food dishes, which included mac and cheese, roasted pork, peach cobbler and plantains.
As party favors, guests received match books and travel-sized candles. But singles guests were given six-month memberships to Match.com.
If you think it is only losers who use online dating, get a load of this story:
ESSENCE ATKINS ENGAGED TO MATCH.COM DATE:
Actress puts profile on Internet dating service and strikes gold (as in a ring).
Actress Essence Atkins got herself a fiancé through Match.com.
The former “Half and Half” star got engaged to Jaime Mendez in February following a year-long courtship that started when they came across each other on the popular Internet dating site, reports TMZ.com. Their wedding is set to take place on Sept. 26.
Atkins, who started her career on “The Cosby Show,” says she preferred using Match.com because she didn’t have to post a picture of herself. She ended up sending Jamie a message on Valentine’s Day because they were 97% compatible.
I love good love stories, particularly those who met online. Here’s an older couple who met online...and then built the chapel!
Couple’s Nelson chapel flourishes after two years
By Chuck Rupnow
NELSON - A love affair between two people who met on an Internet dating site and their “chapel of dreams” continues.
Gary and Sue Papenfus of rural Nelson built the log-style Chapel of Guardian Angels on their property just more than two years ago, and have been reveling in how they and others have been blessed by it.
“It has been pretty special, how the whole thing has developed,” said Sue, 55, about the estimated 3,000 visitors and special events at the picturesque site. “Everyone who has visited has touched us. That’s what this is about.”
People from as far away as Alaska, California, New Mexico and Florida have visited.
“It’s fun to see where everyone is from,” said Sue, who requests long-distance visitors place a pin on either a Wisconsin or U.S. map indicating their home. “This has all been such a neat experience for us.”
There have been many additions and improvements to the 26-by-50-foot chapel since the Leader-Telegram published an article about it about two years ago.
“There are always more things we talk about doing, but it takes time,” said Sue, mentioning Gary has aspirations of adding a balcony in the chapel. “That’s going to be a couple of years.”
The chapel is filled with figurines and pictures of angels.
A lower-level banquet area has been completed. It has room for many tables and chairs and a separate, decorated area where a bride can prepare for a wedding.
So far there have been 16 weddings at the site, which now also has a birch arbor garden area with a small bridge over a goldfish pond.
People come to the chapel for celebrations and to remember loved ones.
Sue and Gary, 60, a longtime truck driver, each were widowed. They met via an Internet dating site in May 2006. Sue was living in DeKalb, Ill., at the time. They dedicated the structure, made of mostly 26-foot-long red and white pine beams, to lost loved ones.
The facility also has been used for a craft show and Christmas celebrations, as well as other get-togethers. Another craft show is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3. Last year’s event drew 16 vendors and 300 people.
“It’s just a nice place to come, to reflect and enjoy,” Sue said. “It is very special for us, but we want it to be special for many others too.”
Here’s a story of a successful Internet dating meeting. But also, this guy has some very good suggestions/guidelines for Internet daters. And he had a quite original idea of updating his profile daily, like a blog. What a way to keep up readers’ interest!
A DAD’S POINT-OF VIEW: Internet Dating 101 and How I Met My Wife
By Bruce Sallan
When I got separated and then divorced six years ago, the world of dating had gone through a change. Internet dating was well underway and the quaint idea of friends introducing you to other friends seemed to have gone the way of the horse and buggy. There were still bars and clubs, but those options didn’t appeal to me when I was young enough to consider them, and when my hearing was still good enough to survive the over-the-top decibels in such environments.
So, it was a brand new world for this middle-aged guy, and Internet dating was the method-du-jour. I had my two young sons full-time so dating of any kind meant babysitters, or meeting during school hours. Later, the issues became how much to disclose to the boys and when and if I should introduce them to a date.
I circumvented the standard profiles by changing mine, literally daily, making my profile in essence a blog. Oddly enough, I developed quite a following of (women) readers across the country. In its own way, that was the beginning of my writing career. I did the rest that was required and posted photos that were relatively current and I didn’t even Photoshop them too much.
But I quickly learned that truth was quite evasive on the Internet. While I didn’t peruse the profiles of the men on the dating sites that I used, I certainly became familiar with the women. It wasn’t rocket science to read between the lines. No photo meant there was a reason for no photo. Headshot only, meant there was a reason as well. Only one photo was equally suspicious. And, for us male slugs, let’s face the truth that our first impression is based on appearance.
What I also learned was that online dating was no different, in its essence, from in-person dating. The man did the pursuing; the woman did the choosing. Exceptions to every rule always exist, but I found I was reaching out to the women far more than the reverse. Quickly, I developed a thick skin, as maybe I would get a response to one in ten of the e-mail messages that I sent out.
The attractive women, at least attractive by the photos they posted, would sometime receive literally thousands of e-mail messages. I began dating one woman who told me that during a period of ten days, when we first began dating, she hadn’t checked her inbox. When she did, it had 9,000 e-mail messages. It certainly raised the question, why did she choose me? As great as I may think I am, I’m also realistic. The answer was quite sobering, as she said: the only way she could handle that volume was to do “eine meenie minie moe.” I was one of the lucky “moe’s” and what I wrote made her laugh, and that’s how we connected. Truly, lottery luck.
Before I tell you how I met Loren, my wife, I’d like to offer ten simple, non-gender specific dating tips; let’s call this Internet Dating 101:
1. If there’s no photo, there’s a reason. Move on.
2. Be patient. It’s a numbers game. Therefore, hang in there.
3. Don’t spend too much time e-mailing and chatting. If you feel there might be some chemistry, set up a meeting. First meeting is coffee only. Don’t make elaborate plans. If you like each other, there’s plenty of time for that. Also, if they’re too busy or it’s too difficult to schedule something, move on.
4. Don’t believe what you read. Be skeptical, but open. Most women lie about their age and weight; most men about their income and height.
5. Tell the truth about yourself—period, end of issue, no excuse.
6. Be clear on what you want and express it in your profile. Don’t be afraid to tell the truth. For example, if you’re a woman and you just don’t like men with thinning hair, save him and you the waste of time by being clear about that in your profile. For a guy, if height or weight is important to you in a woman, be honest about it.
7. While I tend to diss self-help books, the book “He’s Really Not Into You” had some plain truths. If there are signs of disinterest, he or she is disinterested. And, often, it has nothing to do with you. Move on.
8. Men and women, over 35 or so, if never married, are often trouble. Not just the men. Women who have never married are as set in their ways as men, and (I’m going to get killed for this) probably more hung up on their careers.
9. Always, if you’re a woman, meet in a public place and only give out your cell number, if you don’t call the guy yourself first (which is better).
10. Be patient and don’t take it personally.
I met Loren exactly the way I’ve described above, by sending her an e-mail, based on her attractive photo and profile. She claimed to read every one of the thousands of e-mail messages that she received and mine also made her laugh. We set up a coffee date. I completely forgot about our meeting! Yup, I forgot, leaving her stood-up thinking what I jerk I was. When I realized my horrific mistake, I called. She took the call with the full intention of blowing me off. The degree of my mea-culpas won her over. She said that the fact that I had kids made her think my mind might have been temporarily made of mush. We set a second date.
The rest, another time, but suffice it to say, the second date was successful enough for a third—and more. We were married on December 27, 2008.
I’ve lost count now about how many stories I have noticed in the NYT’s “Vows” where the couple met online. If you are not a NYT reader, every Sunday they feature a couple with more than the standard wedding write-up. This couple met on Match.com in 2006, an unlikely match if there ever was one. How else would a physician in Vermont meet a musician in Brooklyn? One really bad no-no is that the musician lied about his age—by 10 years! Which made him 20 years older than her, rather than the 10 she was already concerned about. In his case, the ruse worked, but yick. NYT or not, lying about age or anything else is not a good idea if you are dating online. He tricked her into dating him, getting deeply involved before she found out the truth. Who likes to be tricked? He must have an incredible amount to offer to get beyond the lie.
March 15, 2009
Vows Rachel Steward and Peter Lord
By ERIC V. COPAGE
IT took an intervention of sorts to bring together Dr. Rachel Steward, a hyper-energetic physician from rural Vermont, and Peter Lord Moreland, a laid-back musician from Brooklyn, known professionally as Peter Lord.
The elements for their romance began to form early in spring 2006 in the Manhattan apartment of Dr. Steward’s friend Dr. Myrandele Damian-Coleman.
Dr. Damian-Coleman said she “thought Rachel deserved a nice guy” but was meeting all the wrong ones in the wrong places — namely St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, where both are medical residents.
The two doctors and a male friendtalked about Dr. Steward’s bad choices. But when she went for the door, Dr. Damian-Coleman said she locked it and told Dr. Steward she wasn’t leaving until she joined an Internet dating service.
Dr. Steward, then 27, and for whom online dating carried the stench of desperation, remembered thinking, “Oh, my God, has it really come to this?” But with her exit blocked, Dr. Steward chose the path of least resistance and entered her profile on Match.com. Her first prospect was yet another co-worker, which caused Dr. Steward to tell her companions, “See, even online I’m not going to meet guys outside the hospital.”
Days later, Mr. Lord, a record producer and a founder of the Family Stand, a group that mixes pop, funk and R&B, also found himself motivated to meet people outside his usual circle. Mr. Lord, who has written or co-written songs including “Rush, Rush” and “The Promise of a New Day,” both performed by Paula Abdul, sent Dr. Steward a less-is-more greeting. It read: “A simple hello, and I liked your smile.”
Dr. Steward, an obstetrician and gynecologist, was at work when she clicked on Mr. Lord’s message and profile. She hesitated over his posted age (37) but was intrigued by the photo of him singing.
They began an e-mail exchange. Eventually Dr. Steward and Mr. Lord, who friends say is prone to hum or sing melodies as they occur to him, whether riding in a car or playing tennis, agreed to get together for a drink.
Dr. Steward is worldly, having traveled extensively and becoming fluent in Russian and Spanish, which contrasts with what she described as her “backwoods” upbringing. “We were constantly eating all of my pet cows, turkeys, goats, deer,” she said.
Their first date, a few days after their last e-mail exchange, began with Mr. Lord pulling up to Dr. Steward’s apartment in his black Mustang. As she approached the car, Mr. Lord thought, “She’s beautiful.” She slipped into the car beside Mr. Lord, whose face was obscured by a knitted cap, and was suddenly seized by a realization: “I didn’t know him at all.”
She took a deep breath as they drove to a SoHo bar for mojitos and “a very deep first date,” which included a discussion of Tolstoy’s essay on what is art but “no peck on the cheek goodnight,” she said. “Nothing.”
He recalled being drawn to her intelligence, and her lack of contact with his world was refreshing. “Lots of people who know pop culture are also caught up in its trendiness and superficiality,” he said.
On their next date, when they saw “Spring Awakening,” the musical, “there was some moment I remember resting my hand on his arm,” she said. Not “a desperation grasp,” she said, just comfortable.
Within weeks she had invited herself along on a gig that the Family Stand had in Amsterdam. Despite their growing affinity, it became clear during that trip that they are “extremely different people,” Dr. Steward said. “I was going for runs in the morning, getting up at 6 a.m., and he was sleeping and preparing for the show that night,” she said.
Before heading overseas, she learned their differences went beyond style: he was not 10, but 20 years older than she. “It slipped out when he had told me his sister was the same age as my mother, and that his sister was seven years older than he was,” she said. “I said, ‘That makes you 47.’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s really how old I am.’ ”
Dr. Steward, now 29, admitted, “If he hadn’t lied about his age I would never have agreed to go out with him.” Still, she said it took her a few weeks to become comfortable with the revelation. “If I am going to build a family with this man and spend the rest of my life with him, I want him to be there,” Dr. Steward said.
In the end, she said, “I was extremely comfortable and trusting of him.” She also appreciated “coming home from the hospital to find the house filled with artists creating.”
His proposal came last November. Mr. Lord, now 49, sang a song he had written especially for her as they rode in a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park.
They were wed on March 7 by the Rev. Joseph W. Tolton, a Pentecostal minister, before 98 guests on the yacht Cloud 9, docked at the New York Skyport Marina on the East River. After the ceremony, Dr. Steward’s sister, Aron, gave a toast in which she encouraged her new brother-in-law to “Dance with her. Always be a little bit better than her on your feet. Competition keeps her around and excited.”
Later that evening, as the yacht glided around Manhattan, the bridegroom, who had described himself as “old, fat and bald,” sought to do just that as he led his new wife around the dance floor with his energetic Salsa moves.
You don’t have to go to Starbuck’s for that first date. This couple picked Zaxby’s, and neither of them could have guessed how much that fast food emporium would figure in their future. Read here about a first date that clicked, and how Zaxby’s played a real role in their love story.
This couple’s love comes with a side of Texas toast Marriage proposal on Zaxby’s sign - and a Big Zax Snak - brings couple full circle
=
By Brandee A. Thomas
Picture it. The date is Feb. 18, 2008, and a couple who met on a popular online dating site are preparing for their first date.
She’s in Oconee County near Athens, and he’s in South Carolina. Fearing that he may be crazier than their online interactions led on, she picks a public place close to the highway for them to meet: Zaxby’s restaurant on U.S. 129 in Jefferson.
She was too nervous to eat, so she ordered a sweet tea. He, too, wasn’t very hungry so he ordered a small meal for them to share as they got to know each other better.
“We met on (http://www.match.com). I knew about that Zaxby’s because my son plays basketball in Cleveland and we’ve stopped there to eat a few times after his games,” said Cyndie Kenimer, a special education teacher in Oconee County.
“I picked a public place because if this guy turned out to be a creep, I wanted there to be a lot of people around. But once we got there we found out we had so much in common. We stayed and talked all night — until they came and told us they were about to close.”
And that was the beginning of their lives together, where they fell in love over a Big Zax Snak.
Fast forward 10 months to December. The couple is on vacation after spending nearly every weekend together and talking on the phone for countless hours.
“We went to Las Vegas for (New Year’s Eve) and it was pretty funny because she kept saying, ‘We’re here, why don’t we just get married,’” said Brad McKee, Kenimer’s online match and a special education teacher in Gwinnett County.
“I kept telling her, ‘No, I don’t want to do it now. I have a plan.’”
Although she didn’t know it at the time, McKee’s plan would bring them full circle to the place where their love affair first started.
After making a call to the restaurant where they met, McKee had secured a public venue to ask for Kenimer’s hand in marriage: the Zaxby’s sign facing U.S. 129.
“I wanted to do something different, but not too corny,” he said. “I thought it would be cool if it could be up on a billboard or something. It’s kinda corny, but kinda cool, too.”
Luckily for McKee, the folks over at Zaxby’s have a soft spot for a romance.
“We haven’t had a request like that one before,” said Sherrie Holcomb, one of the restaurant’s managers. “When he asked us to do it, it seemed kinda odd. But it was romantic, so I agreed.”
Fast forward again to last Wednesday afternoon, when at least 10 tornadoes touched down in Georgia and it rained cats and dogs over most of Northeast Georgia.
“The weather was really bad and I thought, ‘Oh no, she won’t be able to see the sign,’” McKee said. “But then when we got about half a mile from the restaurant it quit raining and the sun came out. It was perfect.”
As they were driving past the sign, which read “Cyndie will you marry me,” Kenimer looked up and noticed something out of the ordinary.
“I was like, ‘My name is on that sign. Why is my name on that sign?’ And then I realized what it said I was so excited that I cried,” she said.
Once they got inside the restaurant, they both realized that the Zaxby’s crew really pulled out all the stops to help make their day special.
McKee had asked that the table where the couple sat on their first date be reserved. The restaurant’s staff also added a vase of flowers and a card for the couple.
“After I got our order — another Big Zax Snak — I set the food down on the table, got down on one knee with the ring and asked her if she definitely wanted to do this,” McKee said.
Of course, Kenimer said “yes.” It’s hard to say “no” to a man with a beautiful ring and a tray of fresh fried chicken, Texas toast and french fries.
Looking back on how she became acquainted with her future husband, it’s easy to see that these two were destined to meet.
“I’ve been divorced for about five years now and I have a daughter in high school and a son in college,” Kenimer said. “I really wasn’t interested in meeting anybody because I was so devoted to being a good mom. But then I noticed that I was always home alone on weekends because they kids were gone so much because they are involved in so many activities.
“A very good friend of mine was single and she said that I should try (http://www.match.com) for a month, just to check it out. I did, but I was scared to death to actually meet anyone, so I would just exchange e-mails with them. After a month, I let my membership expire.
”About five months after her first foray into online dating, Kenimer’s friend died from cancer. So as a tribute to her friend, she decided to give the Web site another try.
“I said, ‘OK. This time I’m really going to go for it.’ I signed up for a three-month membership that December and I met (McKee) in February,” she said. “We have so much in common and my kids adore him. It’s really just been a good experience all around.”
For the couple with such a nontraditional courtship and subsequent proposal, it’s only fitting that their nuptials follow that same path.
“We’ve both been married before and had the big weddings, so we don’t want to do that again,” Kenimer said. “We’ve been to Las Vegas and we’re thinking about going back again and letting Elvis marry us.”
As we all know, normal covers a lot of territory. See what happens in Normal’s Taco Bell:
Normal couple weds at Taco Bell
Associated Press - January 10, 2009 11:44 PM ET
NORMAL, Ill. (AP) - Wedding bells meant Taco Bell for Paul and Caragh Brooks.
Customers inside a Normal outlet of the fast-food restaurant continued to order tacos and burritos as the couple married yesterday in 1 of its booths.
Thirty-year-old groom Paul Brooks said he and his bride have an off-beat relationship and thought an off-beat setting would be appropriate.
Employees displayed hot sauce packets labeled with the words “Will you marry me?”
Twenty-1-year-old Caragh Brooks wore a $15 hot pink dress for the $200 wedding. Several dozen guests looked on as the couple’s friend, Ryan Green of Normal, administered the vows.
Green was ordained online, making the ceremony a fitting happy ending for a relationship that began on an Internet dating site.
Well, it’s a bit creative, I guess, to propose on Twitter, but stranger things have happened:
Twitter Marriage Proposal: Bloggers In Love
Grant Robertson from Download Squad has proposed to his girlfriend Christina Warren (TUAW and Download Squad) on TWITTER. That’s right. On Twitter. Social networking has come a long way.
Things Better Left Off Twitter: Bridezilla Edition
Eric Krangel | January 9, 2009 5:15 PM
Can Internet oversharing get any worse than self-described “new media douchebag” @grobertson getting down on one knee (in front of his computer) to ask his girlfriend to marry him.. on Twitter?
Oh yes, we’re afraid it can. Because @film_girl countered his four aces of fame-trolling with a royal flush of oversharing. After happily tweeting “yes! Yes! Yes!”, @film_girl went on to beg her 4.526 followers to promote her Twitter-proposal.. on Digg.
She’s got 702 Diggs so far. Sounds like this couple was made for each other, good luck.
Lots of my clients I know go on to find what they are looking for, love wise, but not too often do I get the detailed descriptions that I have gotten from Kathy and Nathan. Here’s Kathy’s note that she sent after they got married in September 2008:
Kathy and Nathan’s Story
Hello Kathryn,
We are back - married and just silly happy together!
Our wedding went perfect on Spruce Head Maine on Sept. 20. Gorgeous sunny mild weather - we could have the ceremony outside near the shoreline. Everyone was impressed with my peacock feathers - a coworker raises peacocks so had a hundred or more everywhere. We had a family blending sand ceremony, my matron of honor did a solo “The Second Time Around”. We had an apache love poem, wrote our own vows, - non-traditional of course.
My wedding march music was Rod Stewart’s “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” and my exit song was Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want to Be With You”.
The night before, we had a lobster bake on the shoreline I had three!! From boat to lobster pot steamer in less than 30 minutes. The best ever.
I did a tremendous amount of planning and the reception dining room just sparkled! Bought windchimes @ $.50 each as party favors with my peacock feathers in napkin for all to take home.
The whoppie pie wedding “cake” was a huge hit with my colors of gold, copper, chocolate brown.
When I had a good date through Yahoo Personals, I would write about it in my dating journal. My great time with Nathan was well described. At the reception, I read my thoughts and my guests were beside themselves with laughter and appreciated my sharing of our moment in time.
We left for a week honeymoon in Cancun at Secrets Maroma Beach and experienced impeccable service along with our couples massage on the beach one afternoon. Did Tulum ruins, ATV jungle tour with zip lines and lots of snorkling - first time for us. Plan to go back.
With all the frenzy of the wedding ended now we step into selling our homes and finding a house for us together. The adventure continues . . .
We are a perfect match and discover that more and more each day, thanks to you!
Will keep in touch
Kathy and Nathan Weston
Time for a love story. Valentine’s Day is on the way!
Internet love sent me from sadly single to happily married.. in four months
By Laura Hinton 8/12/2008
Marie Tonge, 44, had given up hope of finding love when she logged on to an internet site. Two dates later she was engaged..
With her slippers on and a cup of tea resting in her hands, Marie Tonge settled down for her usual Friday night – chatting to people online.
After her divorce nine years earlier, shy Marie had given up hope of ever finding love again. She says: “I was a single mum with two boys and a full-time job as a learning support assistant, I never had time to go out.”
The only respite from Marie’s loneliness was her computer. When her two sons Corey, 16, and Reece, 11, were asleep in bed she logged on to an internet dating service.
She says: “It was a bit of harmless fun. I was just looking for friendship really, nothing serious.”
That all changed on May 4 this year when Nigel, 45, a property developer from Caerphilly, Cardiff, logged on for the first time.
Marie had been chatting to guys online for a month from her Pembrokeshire home before Nigel, a father-of-two, pinged over an email.
She says: “I’d given up hope of meeting someone. In nine years I’d been on two dates that weren’t even half as good as a hot bath and glass of wine.”
Marie was even going to cancel her account with the dating website, part of Friends Reunited – that was until Nigel got in touch.
Same wavelength
Nigel says: “When I read Marie’s profile and we started chatting I was struck by her kindness – she clearly adored her sons and her job.”
After a few minutes the 45-year-old had little doubt that he’d met the love of his life. “I think you know after a few emails if you’re on the same wavelength,” he says.
“I’d been on my own for six years and decided to do something about it. Internet dating seemed like a good way to meet people without the scary prospect of chatting to strangers in a bar.”
Taken with Nigel’s polite message, Marie quickly replied: “I’d given up hope of meeting anyone nice – but here you are!”
An hour later the pair had exchanged mobile numbers and then spent the whole night texting each other.
Marie says: “It wasn’t like we’d met in a bar and had any expectations. We both knew that we had similar interests so we’d skipped all that awkward chat you have with someone new.”
Luckily Nigel felt the same. He says: “I felt like a love-struck teenager all over again. At the same time, though, a part of me thought it just has to be too good to be true.”
Determined to find out if what he felt was real, Nigel asked Marie out on a first date.
The lovestruck pair met at Powis Castle in Aberystwyth – only a week after first speaking online.
Marie says: “As soon as I saw Nigel, I realised straight away that I fancied him.”
The couple went for a walk and Nigel says: “There was an obvious chemistry between us. I couldn’t believe Marie was so lovely. I told her all about my two kids, Laura, 19, and Richard, 15. She understood straightaway how important they are to me, it made me warm to her even more.”
Marie couldn’t believe her luck either – especially when Nigel produced a picnic. “No man had ever been this romantic before,” admits Marie.
After enjoying a picnic of Cava and homemade quiche, Nigel led Marie to a nearby church and slid his hand into hers.
Marie was surprised but didn’t pull away – she felt truly happy for the first time in years.
“We sat on the church pews listening to a choir singing Ave Maria, it was magical,” she says. “I felt so happy sitting next to this gorgeous man I barely knew but already felt so comfortable with.”
Then, after a walk along the seafront, Nigel had an important question for Marie: “In five years’ time where do you want to be?”
Then suddenly he blurted out that he wanted to marry Marie by the end of the year.
Taken aback, Marie stammered that she needed to get home to her boys. Nigel says: “I can’t explain. I didn’t want to let Marie go, I knew we’d both found something special.”
And the more Marie thought about his words as she went home to her boys, the more she realised that she felt the same.
“I couldn’t stop saying how great Nigel was,” says Marie. “I think the boys thought their mum was being really daft.”
Over the next few days Nigel and Marie were texting non-stop until they met for a second date.
“We’d agreed to meet on the seafront in Aberystwyth, where we’d enjoyed our romantic picnic,” says Marie.
“I couldn’t wait and got to the beach at about 8am. I sat on a crop of rocks waiting for Nigel. Then I heard the noise of a speedboat and watched it roar past.
“Imagine my shock when I saw Nigel driving it, heading towards me. I don’t know what came over me but I waded into the sea to meet him.”
Nigel cut the boat’s engine and 14 days after they first met he asked Marie a life-altering question, “Marry me?”
A stunned Marie replied: “Yes!”
“If it wasn’t for the screaming seagulls it could have been a scene straight out of a James Bond film,” Nigel says. “Staring into Marie’s sparkling eyes I knew I loved this amazing woman and couldn’t let her go. When she said yes my whole body relaxed with relief.”
The couple celebrated their engagement with a barbecue on the beach. “I know it sounds crazy but I knew as soon as I met Nigel he would be the one,” says Marie. “But I never expected him to propose so soon. Like me, though, he didn’t want to wait.”
However, there was just one hurdle to face. Nigel had to meet Marie’s boys, and she had to meet Nigel’s children.
Thankfully everyone got on. Marie’s son Corey even helped Nigel plan his second proposal to his mum.
“Nigel had told me to book a romantic restaurant. After a great meal the waiter brought over a bottle of champagne and two glasses. Before I knew it Nigel had got down on one knee and pulled out a diamond ring.”
Now the engagement was official the couple didn’t want to wait to tie the knot.
Concern for boys
Nigel says: “The only thing that concerned me was how Marie’s boys would take the news. That’s why I wrote a letter to Corey explaining that he’d still be the man of the house and I just wanted to take care of his mum because I love her so much.”
Four months after Nigel and Marie first met they married at St Jeromes Church in Llangwm on September 20.
“Neither of us wanted to spend a lot of money so I bought a dress off eBay for £45,” says Marie. “Fancy clothes and flowers just weren’t important to us.”
Proud Corey walked his mum down the aisle to I Wanna Spend My Life With You by The Proclaimers and Reece followed carrying the wedding rings on a red cushion.
Friends mucked in too, decorating Llangwm Village Hall with lots of flowers and balloons for the wedding reception.
“I couldn’t get over how welcome Marie’s friends and family had made me feel,” says Nigel.
“I know people reading this might be thinking I’m crazy but when you’ve found that special person the last thing you want to do is let them go,” Marie says. “Life’s too short to be miserable and alone.”
Nigel, Laura and Richard have moved into Marie’s house and the couple are planning a family Christmas at home with their children.
Marie says: “I can’t wait to sit round the table all together and tuck into turkey with all the trimmings, it will feel wonderful.
“And despite what people will say I know what Nigel and I have is special. We’re in this for the long haul because you know what – we clicked right from the start.”
I love to read the Sunday New York Times, and one of my favorite parts is the “Vows” column in the Celebrations section, where they profile a marrying couple in depth. I’ve noticed lately that about once a month, the couple featured met on an Internet dating site. That’s about right—Around 20% of couple now found each other on the Net. This story is particularly adorable, because the not only did the couple meet online, they are older (she is 45, he 63), but also they share a love of horses, and he is a later life cowboy. Read the story below, and see it too on a video at the NY Times site.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/style/vows/1194811622327/index.html
November 9, 2008 Vows Elise Gutfeld and Tim Hayes
By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER
THE first time Elise Gutfeld rode on a horse, at age 3, she found bliss. During family vacations in the Catskills, she insisted on taking trail rides. By the third grade she was hooked on “Black Stallion” books.
At 13, she told her parents that if she had to go to sleep-away camp, it needed to involve horseback riding.
“I wanted to be with them, ride them, draw them, live them,” she said, dreaming of becoming a jockey, until at 5-foot-7, she realized she was too tall.
As a teenager, her priorities changed. She was a prom queen at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, N.J., lettered in tennis and softball, and headed to Columbia University. She now telecommutes as a vice president and the senior technology manager for Bank of America.
Five years ago, when her older daughter, Ma’ayan Stein, asked for riding lessons, Ms. Gutfeld started riding again. When her instructor died, she dropped the lessons. Then, divorced for four years, she concentrated instead on finding someone special.
Last year, Ms. Gutfeld, 45, of Fort Lee, N.J., had been Internet dating for a few months when she received a message from Tim Hayes.
His screen name was Happy Trails. Fourteen years earlier, in the wake of a divorce, he had given up a slick go-getter Manhattan-based career producing and writing television commercials and relocated to East Hampton, N.Y., to work as a horse whisperer, teaching natural horsemanship, a tender method of training and riding horses.
After a few e-mail exchanges, Mr. Hayes, 63, asked for her phone number. She demurred, having had a few bad experiences with online dating, but asked for his. When she called two days later, she got his voicemail.
“I am either on the phone on in the barn,” the message said. Ms. Gutfeld said she remembered thinking, “This is it: this is my cowboy.”
His callback lasted two hours. She offered to drive to the Hamptons to meet him and his 19-year-old horse, Austin.
Mr. Hayes’s son, Dr. Rick Hayes, 45, a cardiologist at New York University Hospital, said, “there weren’t any red flags” for his father to say no to this Internet date.
But shortly before their first date, Mr. Hayes was kicked in the mouth while giving a riding lesson. A front tooth was knocked out, and there was no time for a dentist to make a temporary.
Still, he escorted Ms. Gutfeld to a friend’s barbecue, an art gallery in Southampton and for ice cream. He knew she was “a keeper,” he said, when she kissed him — between licks of cookies and cream — “even though I was missing my front tooth.”
The next weekend, watching him sweet talk Austin and ride without a saddle, Ms. Gutfeld was “overflowing with feeling” at how gentle he was with the horse.
He invited Ms. Gutfeld’s daughters, Anna Stein, 10, and Ma’ayan, 14, for a trail ride at Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk. “I could see what a good father he would make,” Ms. Gutfeld said, realizing “that his way with horses translated perfectly to his way with people and relationships.”
They learned that besides the horses, they also shared a love of family, children and movies. One of the problems Mr. Hayes had encountered with prospective partners, he said, was that “there were things I wanted to change about them.”
With Ms. Gutfeld, he said, he “didn’t want to fix or change anything.”
Even though she calls herself a perfectionist, she said, “I could let my hair down and make mistakes and he would love me anyway.”
She personified every adjective on “the list,” which, he said, included being trustworthy, predictable, cheerful, appreciative, emotionally nurturing, sexy and romantic.
“It was the most comfortable, easiest and intimate relationship I had ever had,” he added.
Carl Bernstein, the investigative journalist, described Mr. Hayes, his longtime friend, as someone who “follows his instincts.”
So last April, when Ms. Gutfeld arrived in East Hampton for the weekend, Mr. Hayes told her that earlier that day he had seen seals on the beach. Despite her grumblings about having work, he insisted on going to the beach. There were no seals; it was a pretense. He dropped to a knee on the sand, pulled a ring from his pocket and proposed.
They were hitched Oct. 4 before 50 family members and friends. The Rev. Christopher Stamp, a minister of the Sanctuary of the Beloved, officiated at the SoHo loft of Nicholas Grabar and Jennifer Sage, a cousin of Mr. Hayes.
During a reception that included cheeseburger sliders and mini red velvet cupcakes, Mr. Hayes swooped Ms. Gutfeld into his arms and asked her to dance.
Having found his own bliss, he turned to the crowd and said, “It’s about falling in love with someone who makes you feel like home.” And then they swayed on the dance floor.
Who says you can’t find love around the corner? These folks did ... but keep in mind that they had to join an online dating service to find each other, still.
Online lovers turn out to be neighbours!
Posted on October 16, 2008 | Category: Other News
A Brit woman joined an online worldwide dating service - only to find love with a man who lived just seven houses down her street.
Teacher Julie McIlroy, 46, started chatting online with Allan Donnelly, 53, after skimming through thousands of pictures of eligible men on the Internet site.
They were amazed to discover they both lived in Cardiff - and were even more surprised when they found that they were neighbours.
“I was totally stunned. It was an incredible coincidence. The dating website could have put me in touch with someone anywhere in the world,” the Sun quoted Julie, as saying.
The couple began seeing each other and went on holiday to Thailand and then to Cambodia and Morocco.
Electrician Allan has popped the question and the couple, who are both divorced, are planning their wedding for next year.
The father of two proposed mum-of-three Julie at a surprise birthday party for her at his home.
“I was amazed that we live so close. But it was my lucky day - Julie is right up my street,” Allan said.
Love it!!! Not only is this a successful long-distance relationship, it spans two countries! And this couple’s experience is very close to what I had with my now-husband Drew: We got to know each other so well by email and phone that it was practically a done deal when we met. Now, this is not usual, and many couples take much more time, but for us, and for Janet and Robert, it worked!
Cyberspace couple marks year of marriage
QUISPAMSIS - A couple in a whirlwind romance, who married three months after meeting on an Internet dating site, celebrated their first anniversary on the weekend surrounded by friends, still talking about how amazing it was to find each other.
Janet and Robert Hunt say that after a year, they are still amazed at being with someone who shares the same values and enjoys the same things, including motorcycles.
Janet and Robert Hunt, both in their 40s, agree that from the outside it looks like they moved very fast, but any obstacles to their union just melted away - the first being geography. She is from New Brunswick and he lived in Florida.
After making contact through eHarmony.com in July 2007 there were daily phone calls, some lasting several hours. It left them feeling they knew each other better than most people who date the conventional way. They also give credit to the in-depth questionnaire they had to answer before the dating service put their names together as possible matches.
“The end result was that I have more in common with her than anyone I have ever met,” said Robert.
Last year a friend urged Janet to give Internet dating a try. Although she didn’t have a lot of faith in the idea, she spent an hour online completing the form on July 1. About a week earlier Robert had done the same thing in Florida.
The computer matched them up, but for a couple of weeks, Janet put off making any further contact because he was so far away. Every couple of days her list was updated with a few new profiles added, and some taken off, but Robert’s was always there.
“I liked his profile, but he lived so far away I didn’t think it was worth responding,” she said.
But then she realized the worst that could happen is he would say he wasn’t interested because of the distance, so she sent a request for contact on July 13 and heard back from him two days later. By July 16 they were talking daily on the telephone.
A month and a half later they met face-to-face when he flew into Bangor from Orlando. Janet’s best friend and her husband invited them to dinner that night because they wanted to meet the man she couldn’t stop talking about. After dinner Robert got down on his knee to propose and Janet accepted. He had already decided to pop the question before he got on the plane.
“I don’t think (Janet’s best friend and her husband) were ready for that,” Robert said, with a chuckle.
“No, they were quite shocked,” Janet agreed.
“We had spent more time talking than anyone I had ever known, so I really knew her very well,” he said. “We talked five or six hours a night after work and prepared meals over the phone and sometimes we had dinner together.”
Last winter in New Brunswick, when Robert first met people who heard he left Florida to live in Canada, they teased him. But he says Canada feels like home.
When they decided to marry, Robert agreed to move to Canada without really knowing the job situation, but luckily his profession is included in NAFTA. Within a few weeks he had a job as a geotechnical technologist at Fundy Engineering and a work visa.
Janet, who is an executive assistant at Moosehead for Derek and Andrew Oland, and has two sons, couldn’t very easily pull up stakes and move to Florida.
“People move across the country for a job, so why not for the love of your life?” Robert said of his decision to relocate.
After a year they are still amazed at being with someone who shares the same values and enjoys the same things, including motorcycles.
“We’ll be thinking the same things at the same time,” he said.
“It’s like he once said, it’s almost like we share a brain,” she said.
But it wasn’t just the two of them starting off married life together last fall. Her sons Alexander, 19, and Jonathon, 16, were part of the family along with Robert’s 16-year-old daughter, Sonja. There was some drama between the teenagers at times, but it didn’t cause any fights for the parents. They think so much alike that when a problem arose they usually came to the same solution.
Sonja, who attended Kennebecasis Valley High School last winter, is in Connecticut with her mother this fall, but is talking of returning to Quispamsis after Christmas.
Although Robert and Janet had both been married before, and thought they knew what love was, they agree they didn’t. Robert said it’s like someone who ate cheeseburgers all his life, thought they were the best things ever, but was finally served filet mignon and now knows the difference.
Ya got to love it—read all the way to the end…
Chinese man, 81, marries Internet date
Internet dating isn’t just for the young—ask an 81-year-old Beijing man who has married a woman he says he met and courted online.
The Beijing News said Wu Jieqin, a retired art professor, married Jiang Xiaohui, 58, Monday, culminating a relationship that began with an online personal ad.
“The Internet does not just belong to the young,” Wu said. “There’s no rule saying the elderly can’t find love on the Internet.”
He said he met Jiang after a series of other virtual dates, adding, “I was smitten when I first saw her photo.” The Chinese news agency Xinhua said the couple chatted online before Wu traveled to Sichuan Province to meet Jiang in person, and that he eventually proposed to her on bended knee.
There was one hitch—Jiang had to overcome strong opposition to the union from her parents, aged 85 and 86, Xinhua said.
Who says you don’t meet good people online? You can even see Marilyn Michaels on YouTube doing her impressions. This lovely love story was featured in the NYTimes “Vows” section—and they met on JDate!
October 26, 2008
Vows
Marilyn Michaels and Steven Portnoff
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
FOR Marilyn Michaels — comedian, impressionist, actress and latter-day vaudevillian — the prospect of marrying again at 65 seemed like the set-up for a Catskills gag about old age.
“God help us!” she exclaimed. “Get me under the huppah in time!”
Ms. Michaels, a Broadway baby whose parents performed on the Yiddish stage and at the Metropolitan Opera, hails from the borscht belt school of rat-a-tat punch lines and dead-on impressions, skills that have brought her acclaim on stage and screen. She radiates more energy than actors half her age.
And yet, in early 2005, the twice divorced Ms. Michaels found herself lonely and tired of “New York hippie-dippy guys,” she said. She opened a profile on JDate, where Steven Portnoff’s black hair and twinkly eyes stopped her cold.
“He called himself a straight arrow — I wanted that,” she said. Imagining herself with this divorced lawyer, she mused, “Just think of all the people you can sue!”
The opening line went to Ms. Michaels, who teased him about his age. “You can’t be 60,” she wrote. “You look like 40. What’s your secret?”
“Pick your parents carefully” was Mr. Portnoff’s retort.
Mr. Portnoff of Freehold, N.J., now 63 and retired, said he was not impressed by celebrity. But he told Ms. Michaels that he was already familiar with her work.
He relayed a memory of his father, whom he lost to Alzheimer’s. “In 1991, I took him to a Broadway show,” he wrote. “After the show, all he would say was, ‘That woman was so funny.’ The show was ‘Catskills on Broadway.’ You were the woman. Thank you for the memory.”
Their first date was in the theater district. It was quickly apparent that Mr. Portnoff, with his Mickey Spillane cadence, could keep pace with the comedian’s one-liners.
In the middle of lunch, she kissed him. “I was very forward,” Ms. Michaels said. “I said, ‘Let me get this out of the way.’ ”
Unfazed, Mr. Portnoff asked: “Can I swallow my scallop first?”
Next came a trip to the Cloisters in northern Manhattan, where Ms. Michaels was horrified to see her suburban suitor surveying the flora for gardening ideas. “How could I survive in the wilds of Freehold?” she recalled thinking. “I’m a Woody Allen New Yorker. I don’t drive. My whole family is driving impaired.”
At first, Ms. Michaels kept him at a distance. She was nervous about leaving the city — and also about losing her heart. “I got married very fast,” she said of her earlier unions. “It’s not difficult to get married. It’s the staying married.” She sighed. “I was afraid.”
For his part, Mr. Portnoff was smitten. “Every date I laughed so hard my ribs hurt,” he said. “Sometimes as we are speaking, she will morph into one of her impressions.”
For months, they dated infrequently. Then Ms. Michaels decided she had had enough. “It was around Valentine’s Day,” Ms. Michaels recalled, her voice cracking. “I said, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, I’m getting in too deep, I’m scared, I’m scared.’ ” She added, “Even though I knew I wanted him, I had to see if it was real.”
A Dear John letter arrived in Mr. Portnoff’s in box. It was a case this lawyer was not willing to lose: “I tried calling her. She didn’t answer the phone. I e-mailed her. She didn’t respond.”
He moved to cross-examination in an e-mail message: “I have all these great qualities and you don’t want to see me anymore? Am I in a Kafka novel?”
It was certainly a trial of a sort. “I wanted to see how I would feel, how I would miss him,” Ms. Michaels said.
It was Mr. Portnoff’s persistence that lured her back. “He kept pursuing,” Ms. Michaels said. “I heard that need in his voice. He was patient. And nothing got in the way of that.”
She said that after two marriages and a life in show business: “It always has been important for me to have a quiet place, a place where I feel secure and confident. And Steve is very much a grounded person. He doesn’t build castles in the air.”
After a wary reunion, “We seemed to come together closer and faster,” Mr. Portnoff said. But they compromised on their living arrangements: New York on weekdays; Freehold on weekends.
They were married by Rabbi Joseph Potasnik on Oct. 5 before a sweeping view of the Hudson in the bride’s Upper West Side apartment. Ms. Michaels, wore a wrap dress and a white flower behind one ear. Her eyes were wet and her voice shook as she and Mr. Portnoff held hands by a piano.
“She is a handful,” said Dr. Judy Kuriansky, the sex therapist and Ms. Michaels’s best friend for decades. “She is high maintenance. She needs a solid guy. I told her, ‘Do not let this guy go, whatever you do.’ ”
A congratulatory phone call came in from the comic Rich Little, with whom Ms. Michaels once traded impressions on television.
Then the bride crooned tunes from “Funny Girl,” a starring role for her in the 1960s.
Few shows go on without a hitch. Ms. Michaels was momentarily in a tizzy when the rabbi did not arrive on time. The bride was not amused: “I wasn’t planning to have to take that much Valium at my own wedding.”
Now here are two folks who know how to get lucky. If you want to get luckier, I can show you how. Try my self-study course Get Lucky at Love!
Newlyweds scoop £1.9 million on National Lottery
By Mirror.co.uk
A newlywed couple who met on a dating website have continued their internet lucky streak by winning £1.9 million on the National Lottery by playing online.
Ed and Michelle Edwards from Yeovil had been living on a shoestring before scooping a share of Saturday’s Lotto jackpot of just under £8 million.
The couple, who have four teenage children from previous relationships, currently live in a rented two-bedroom cottage in Yeovil.
They are on a list for a shared ownership property but now have their eyes on buying their own detached five bedroom house in nearby Sherbourne.
Mr Edwards, 43, who had originally deleted an email from the National Lottery notifying him of their win, managed to keep it a secret from his wife for three hours last Sunday until he was sure their numbers had come up.
The day before the couple had been celebrating winning just £7 on the EuroMillions.
Mrs Edwards, 39, who has already handed in her notice as store manager for Edinburgh Woollen Mill in Sherbourne, suggested they chance their luck on the Saturday night draw with three lucky dips and two rows of birthdays.
She has already bought a new Mini Cooper convertible after having to sell her last one to bay the bills after her divorce.
“We were standing in a field with our two dogs when Ed told me and I jumped up and down, screamed and said I didn’t believe him, I thought it was a joke,” she said.
“The first person I told was my sister, you’re told to keep it to yourself but its very difficult, you just have to share that kind of news.”
Mr Edwards, who works as a computer engineer for Avon and Somerset Probation Service, is taking a month of work to decide his next move.
But the family are determined to go on holiday and buy a bigger house in time for Christmas so that all two of the couple’s children who still live at home can have their own rooms.
Mr Edwards said: “Everyone has an idea of what they want to buy if they ever won the lottery but when you do all those ideas seem silly and you dismiss them.
“I always thought I’d like to go to the North Pole and run around naked like Billy Connolly.
“All of a sudden you have this great amount of money but you have to invest it and look after it and your family.”
The couple met through an internet dating agency two years ago and a week after their first date realised they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
They married six months ago in Chantmarle Manor, in Frome St Quintin, near Yeovil, where they announced their win today.
Mrs Edwards said: “You don’t go on Internet dating sites to meet your husband, I went on to find someone I enjoyed spending time with but when we met that was it and 18 months later we were married.
“It has been hard the past few years, we were always in our overdraft and relying on credit cards, living from week to week.
“But we have worked through it by making the most of what we have, we could never have got together a deposit for a house and I have worked my whole life so it’ll be nice to have some time off.”
Mr Edwards said: “But we want the children to realise that we were lucky to win the lottery and that you have to work hard for your daily bread.”
Match.com matches a couple who were practically neighbors. No long-distance relationship here....
Internet matchup leads to marriage for University of Tennessee at Chattanooga teachers
By: Holly Leber-
As teachers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chris Stuart and Susan Seaton worked in adjacent buildings, had mutual acquaintances and parked in the same lot.
They never met, though, until they ventured into the world of online dating.
Mr. Stuart, an English professor, and Ms. Seaton, an adjunct instructor in the art department, encountered each other on match.com. They e-mailed once, met two days later and were married six months after that. If not for the Web, they say, things would be very different.
“We were in buildings right next to each other,” said Mr. Stuart. “We knew (mutual) people but hadn’t met.”
“And probably wouldn’t have,” Ms. Seaton said.
“And probably wouldn’t have,” he echoed.
This is a typical exchange. The newlyweds — they married on June 24 of this year — have a tendency to finish each other’s sentences. If one gropes for a word, the other supplies it. Their courtship was whirlwind; it was obvious to both early on that they were headed somewhere big.
“We started talking about (marriage) way too soon,” he said.
“We just kind of knew,” Ms. Seaton said.
“We met on a Monday, right?” Mr. Stuart chattered. “She went home for Christmas on Thursday, and she told her family ‘I might have met the one’.”
They laugh as they recall their story.
Ms. Seaton and Mr. Stuart didn’t have a typical online courtship. She was the one to reach out first, sending a brief e-mail to invite him for coffee. He countered with a suggestion of dinner. There was no composing of witty e-mails, no coy instant-message flirtation. Both were divorced and ready to brave the waters once again; neither was interested in playing games.
“(I thought) let’s meet in person and let’s go or not,” Ms. Seaton said.
“When you’re 40, you’re less interested in playing the field than maybe when you’re 20,” Mr. Stuart added.
The concept of dating again was intimidating, they agree. The decision to seek out a possible partner online was partially motivated by lack of practice and social limits placed on them by geography.
“There comes a point after being in a long marriage that to start dating again is ...” Ms. Seaton trailed off, trying to formulate the right word.
“Daunting,” Mr. Stuart supplied after a beat.
“Yeah, it’s daunting,” she agreed. “I don’t know how to do it, where do I go ... Chattanooga’s not that big.”
Mr. Stuart was separated for three weeks before he went online. It took her a year. They met on her second attempt at match.com. In her prior experience, she said, she’d found that the more online preamble there was before meeting, the more disappointing the ultimate meeting was. The second time around, she said, she questioned whether she even wanted to take another shot at meeting someone online.
“I had reservations about (meeting Mr. Stuart) and about going back online in the first place,” she said.
He’s the one who brings up her prior bad dates — clingy men or pretty faces with little substance.
“I had people write me back and (say) ‘Well, I thought you were cute. What’s up?’ ” she said. “That’s not enough, and (it was) freaking me out.”
She brushes off his urging to go into detail about a particularly harrowing experience, summarizing the man with: “He was insulting, he’d been married before, I think he was a meth addict ...”
“I had (no bad dates),” Mr. Stuart said. She was the first woman he encountered online, though he had a few other offers, she teased him.
As the veteran online dater of the two, she was more aware of its pitfalls, including misrepresentation. Fortunately, their proximity afforded her the opportunity to offer a reference — a mutual acquaintance. He didn’t bother.
“I figured anyone who’s honest enough to say ‘you can go talk to this person’ is probably all right,” Mr. Stuart said.
So what if they hadn’t been so close? Would the match still have been made?
He thinks so. She doesn’t.
“I would have made the trip, probably,” Mr. Stuart said.
“Not me,” Ms. Seaton countered.
Ultimately, she said, while the proximity was good, it was the proverbial icing on the cake, not the draw and attraction. They had common interests and similar backgrounds.
“We were going to have things to talk about, even if we didn’t fall in love or whatever,” he said.
“I am an artist. I am liberal. There aren’t that many of us (in Chattanooga),” Ms. Seaton said. “It wasn’t about ‘we work at the same place.’”
“It was about the right kind of person,” Mr. Stuart said. “Which was the cool thing about (match.com) ... you can make the pool a lot smaller real fast instead of feeling like you’re looking out at this vast sea of not knowing.”
You don’t have to be on a dating site to find true love on the Internet, but I do not recommend hanging out where these two folks met, on a gambling site! Good financial habits speak well for a future mate, and dropping dough gambling is not a good reference. But the story is amusing nonetheless…
Love At First Slot: Online Gambling Couple Married
July 28, 2008
Online gambling is not just a pastime anymore – “Swede” and “Cynthial” met on an online gambling forum just over a year ago and last week, their relationship hit the universal landmark of matrimony. Crossing international waters, love slowly blossomed and thus the happy couple have joined together as one.
“Swede”, hailing from Sweden (as you may have guessed), crossed paths with “Cynthial” of the US in June of 2007, and what began as innocent conversation soon intensified to daily emails, continuous instant messaging and intercontinental telephone conversations. Even with thousands of miles between them, destiny is not so easily thwarted. The two eventually met in London, choosing a neutral half-way point for a one-week getaway.
In that week’s time, the couple decided they were inseparably compatible, sharing the same interests, including their love for online gambling. Swede went about the process of closing down his antiques auctioneering business and made the monumental move to join Cynthial in the United States, where she runs a construction products business.
Arriving on US soil in April, Swede and Cynthial were married just last week. They have a new life plan now, intending to open a restaurant along Albuquerque, New Mexico’s famous Route 66.
On a personal note, I would like to wish Swede and Cynthial all the happiness the world has to offer. I myself met my husband online and we have been together for nearly 6 blissful years, with one gorgeous 2 year old daughter to show for it.
It just goes to show that while ‘online dating’ and ‘online gambling’ have both seen their fair share of scrutiny, wonderful things, well beyond our imagining at the time, can quickly blossom.
Now, talk about an up-front and honest profile: He described himself honestly as a smoker with 11 children (ages 8 to 29) from two previous marriages. And he hadn’t cut his hair in 13 years. And he STILL got the girl.
Elopement wraps up romance with a bow
By Joe Blundo
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
BERLIN, Ohio—Keeping marriage plans secret isn’t easy when the bride and groom have 15 inquisitive offspring between them.
Arlene Essinger and Kenny Link, both 49, got it done by eloping this month to a cabin in Amish country.
She wore a cranberry-colored dress and a wreath of roses in her hair. He wore his “dress sneakers.” A minister they’d met just minutes before pronounced them husband and wife, they kissed, and that was that.
It was a relief, the new Mrs. Link said.
“I don’t have to dance around questions my family keeps asking me.”
Their trip to Berlin, about 90 miles northeast of Columbus in Holmes County, had raised plenty of suspicions among relatives.
The Links confirmed them when they broke the news of their marriage to about 30 gathered for a cookout the weekend after the elopement.
“They thought it was an engagement party,” Mrs. Link said. “A couple of family thought it was going to be a wedding.
“So, after a while, everybody got over the initial shock, and I think we all had a good time.”
The couple’s elopement marked the culmination of a three-year romance that began online.
Mr. Link, a Mechanicsburg factory worker who believes in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach, ran a Yahoo! personal ad that softened no edges: He described himself honestly as a smoker with 11 children (ages 8 to 29) from two previous marriages.
The ad included a photo showing his hair, which hadn’t been cut in 13 years.
A mother of four (ages 16 to 30) who was living in Marysville, Essinger had recently divorced after 27 years of marriage. She initially considered Mr. Link more of an adviser than a romantic interest.
They chatted online for three months, with him schooling her on the Internet dating scene. His savvy and helpfulness impressed her.
“He’s a very intelligent man,” she said.
They met in person and began dating. Eventually, he cut his hair, although whose idea that was remains a he-said/she-said issue.
Mr. Link, an Air Force veteran, calls himself a “radical conservative”; he’s both anti-war and anti-tax. His new wife said she doesn’t agree with all of his views but she’s learning a lot.
She isn’t a person with strong political opinions or a penchant for speaking out.
They have other things in common, though.
Mr. Link had adopted four children; Essinger, two. He plays the piano; she’s a part-time music director at Hoge Memorial Presbyterian Church in Columbus. She wanted the freedom to pursue her goals; he encouraged her.
Mr. Link isn’t big on formality: He once wore a cardboard tie to a relative’s wedding. So an elopement suited him, although he insisted that the religious ceremony be preceded by a private commitment at which no one else would be present.
“There’s a plethora of symbols in our lives that mean nothing,” he said. “I don’t require a ceremony, but I will acquiesce if that’s what Arlene wants.”
He not only acquiesced but also made her a headpiece of roses and pipe cleaners for the service. And he hummed Wedding March as she made her bridal walk from the side door of their rented cabin to a patio where the minister waited.
The Rev. David Stutzman of Sugarcreek conducted a simple service in which he compared marriage to wine:
“My prayer for both of you is: Just like good wine that’s been sealed and tastes better with age, so will your marriage be.”
They exchanged rings, and the union became official.
“I’m not singing the recessional,” Mr. Link joked afterward.
The couple have different goals: Mr. Link, a Cleveland native, wants to retire from his job in two years and spend one baseball season as an usher at Indians games; then he wants to do service work, perhaps in a hospital. Mrs. Link, who recently completed a vocal-music degree at Capital University in Bexley with a minor in journalism, would like to work as a copy editor.
They’ve promised each other that in marriage they will continue the approach Mr. Link took in his personal ad: Be honest and speak plainly.
Which explains his cleanshaven face.
She asked him to remove a few days’ worth of stubble before the wedding.
“And I believe I said it plainly.”
This article below is a bit misnamed, because it’s about singles who have never been married before meeting up and marrying when they are over 45, not about singles over 45 finding love. We know that the over-45’s have been finding love, but it is interesting to see that older never-marrieds are saying the vows. I have viewed never marrieds over 45 or 50 with some suspicion, particularly if the proposed partner has been coupled or married before. Long time singles have not had the chance to learn what is only possible to learn when you are grappling with a real partner in real time and space. I suppose if neither partner has been married or attached before, then they are on fairly similar footing (little relationship experience). The positives are that career concerns, money, and the question of children are pretty much decided by then. What do you think?
More singles finding love after age 45
By SHARON JAYSON
USA TODAY
When she was still single in her 40s, Debra Siegel made a list of qualities for her yet-elusive perfect husband: honest, family-oriented, a hard worker and physically fit.
But the years passed and the list went unfulfilled.
“When I hit 50, the bells went off,” she says. “I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life.”
That’s when she took what she calls “drastic action.” Her future husband, Dan Furlin, was of a similar mind.
“I didn’t think marriage was in the picture for me,” he says. “Once you hit 50, you don’t want to go through the rest of life without your soul mate. I was a little bit more aggressive.”
Both went the online dating route and met within months. The Dunedin, Fla., couple are both fitness-conscious and vegetarian. They were also both natives of New York state, and each had lived in Los Angeles. They moved to Florida — Furlin to Clearwater and Siegel to Orlando — before meeting online. They married in 2003.
Siegel-Furlin, 56, and Furlin, 58, are among a small but growing group of older adults marrying for the first time after age 45. Years ago, these older singles would have been known as the “spinster” neighbor or the confirmed “bachelor” friend.
But now, longer life spans mean 50 is the new 30 — there’s plenty of life ahead.
That, coupled with the baby boomer “never-wanna-be-old” attitude and a greater number of aging singles in the population, makes it more likely that those who want to marry actually will.
A USA TODAY analysis of Census records of Americans ages 45-55 shows that the percentage of those who said they had never been married in 2006 had doubled since 1990, and the percentage of those who were currently married had dropped by 9 percent.
It’s fairly difficult to get a real handle on this segment of the singles population because no federal entity tracks first marriages at specific ages. The closest count is the median age at first marriage, which in 2006 (the latest year for which data are available) was at its highest point: men at 27.5 and women at 25.5, according to the U.S. Census.
A tally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is available just for a 20-year period, 1970 to 1990, shows that in 1990, only 0.4 percent of women and 0.6 percent of men married for the first time at ages 45 to 49.
According to the most recent data from the federal Survey of Income and Program Participation, which includes marriage, 13 percent of those who wed in 2003 were 45 and older.
Internet dating has largely made it possible for many of these later-life first marriages. It’s only in recent years that some sites have started monitoring that demographic.
Among them is Yahoo Personals, based in Santa Clara, Calif., which reports a 33 percent increase from January 2006 to November 2007 among users ages 45 and over who say they have never been married.
Since 2005, Match.com reports an increase of almost 10 percent of new members 45 and older and who have never been married; these now make up almost 14 percent of its members.
New patterns, new people
“As people get older, they tend to find themselves in fairly established patterns, so the ability to meet new people goes down over time. They’ve got to do something new if they want to meet different people,” says Craig Wax of Dallas, senior vice president and general manager for Match.com for North America.
Brian Lebowitz, 57, and Lise Goldman, 53, were married earlier this month. They met online almost two years ago and found out at the time that they lived within blocks of each other. Lebowitz, an attorney, lives in Washington, D.C. Goldman, who works in economic development, now lives in suburban Chevy Chase, Md.
Lebowitz says his job and his hobby as a book collector took up most of his free time. But when he turned 55, he decided to give online dating a shot.
“I’d pretty much given up, but then thought I would give it a try and see what it was like,” he says. “Some people — myself included — would be more comfortable starting off communication by e-mail rather than going up to somebody at a party. It’s a less threatening way to go about it.”
Goldman says she always wanted to be married. She had been engaged twice — once in her mid-20s and again more than a decade ago — but she says it just wasn’t right until she met Lebowitz, whom she says is intelligent and kindhearted.
“There are wonderful people still out there who are hiding away in their work,” she says. “He’s an international lawyer, so he needs to work evenings a lot. That’s been one of the blessings that kept him away from the dating scene.”
Dating Web sites have been reinventing themselves since online dating took off in the mid-1990s. They’ve refined their methods, largely emphasizing a more scientific approach, which often includes compatibility and personality testing.
Others have focused on niche marketing, including Spark Networks, whose online dating sites include JDate for Jewish singles, as well as CatholicMingle.com, InterracialSingles.net, BlackSingles.com, LatinSinglesConnection.com and PrimeSingles.net. That site, as well as lavalifePRIME and BOOMj.com, is among those offering social networking for these older singles.
Who says that all you meet on line is a bunch of clowns? Here’s a real clown and his bride who met on Jdate.com and whose wedding made the 4/13 New York Times “Vows” write up. Now the REALLY interesting part is that this is the second wedding in a month that the NYT has featured couples who met on the Net. Both have little videos accompanying write ups on the net. Here’s the one about Stephanie and Adam, and here’s the link to the video about Diane and Philip. I think that both couples met on Jdate, so if you are looking for a Jewish partner, clown or no clown, Jdate seems to be hopping.
April 13, 2008
Vows
Stephanie Schwab and Adam Gertsacov
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
MIDGE and Madge were not invited to the wedding in Yonkers on April 5. Stephanie Schwab, the bride, claimed to be jealous of those extraordinarily petite showgirls who had traveled the globe with her betrothed.
“He coos at them, and speaks to them in very, very soft tones,” she said.
So Adam Gertsacov, 43, agreed to leave his famous fleas at home, along with his velvet top hat and red-white-and-green shoes. His clown nose was allowed only for prewedding photos, but Ms. Schwab joyfully wore one, too. They succeeded admirably in maneuvering into an ardent kiss beneath the bright red snouts.
Marrying a clown is no run-of-the-mill thing. Mr. Gertsacov is the owner of the Acme Miniature Flea Circus. His stars, Midge and Madge, each dwarfed by the period at the end of this sentence, are said to perform feats like pulling chariots or walking a high wire.
Audiences pretty much have to take Mr. Gertsacov’s word for all this. He uses a magnifying glass to provide the play-by-play, and only the props are visible. So how did Ms. Schwab, 40, a brainy vice president of Converseon, a marketing agency in Manhattan, someone who holds an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois, end up marrying a graduate of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College who sometimes performs as a giant bumblebee?
Blame the Internet. In 2004, each was prowling a dating site. Mr. Gertsacov, of Rhode Island, traveled continuously and was open to meeting somebody nice from anywhere. Ms. Schwab, of New York, emphatically did not want another long-distance relationship.
And then there were the photos Mr. Gertsacov displayed of himself. One was a graphic blowup of an eye. She wondered if the possible artiness outweighed the obvious goofiness.
She consented to a phone call, and soon they were having “these wonderful conversations late into the night.” Over coffee in New York they “instantly connected,” she said. Soon, he was in New York almost every weekend.
He handled the inevitable career questions gradually. He first said he was a performing artist; then a creator of original comic shows; and, finally, someone who presented “popular theatrical traditions.” Only when she seemed “firmly on the hook,” he said, did he disclose the flea-bitten fabric of those heralded traditions.
She liked his intelligence and creativity, and his apparent ability to profit from his passions. “He wasn’t a lawyer, he wasn’t a consultant; it was refreshing,” she said.
Vaudeville, she thought, was exactly the kind of thing her parents would get a kick out of. And at the wedding, her father, Steven Schwab of Chicago, an owner of a business there that makes baking products for children, exuded, “There will be humor in their life forever.”
Mr. Gertsacov said: “I think she may have presented herself as more bohemian than she actually is. Which is O.K. I’m bohemian enough for both of us.”
Ms. Schwab, who had two previous marriages, once used $120,000 of her own money to start a company called Erotigo, to bring pornography to hand-held computers. It was featured in BusinessWeek, but after Sept. 11 she failed to attract the investors she needed. “It was a wild ride, really fun,” she said.
Mr. Gertsacov, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and earned a master’s in theater and communications from Rhode Island College, claims he is the most educated clown in America — “barring certain elected officials.”
They bought a house in Yonkers two and a half years ago, became active in a synagogue and began to talk around the topic of marriage. Talk became plans five months ago, when Ms. Schwab became pregnant. Mr. Gertsacov’s mother, Karel, was unconscious and near death last December when he told her that he was engaged. “Her eyes fluttered,” he said, adding that her death soon afterward contributed to him wanting a sense of familial continuity.
The magic came together at the Roosevelt Ballroom in Yonkers, a classically inspired hall visited by both Presidents Roosevelt. The wedding invitation — in orange, a color with which Mr. Gertsacov is obsessed — announced the occasion as “A colossal combination that is sure to amaze & delight for generations to come.”
The bride was radiant in a gown that had been twice altered to meet the exigencies of pregnancy. The bridegroom only once upstaged their rabbi, Jason Nevarez. Mr. Gertsacov could not help himself from doing an elaborate pantomime with his prayer shawl. Wedding rings were extracted from a Cracker Jack box.
At the reception guests shared their talents, from juggling to rope tricks to what seemed deliberately lame humor. There was a life-size dog puppet who scratched the audience’s fancy with bon mots about fleas.
Then, as a klezmer combo shifted into high, the couple glided across the shimmering dance floor. A singer crooned the lovely, inevitable lyrics of Cole Porter:
“Birds do it, bees do it,
Even educated fleas do it.
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”
March 31, 2001, was the day that Drew and I got married. We met three years earlier, so our 10th anniversary of our first meeting on Match.com is coming up fast, in May. Here’s one of my favorite pictures from our wedding:
We’ve shared so much life together in 10 years that it seems like we have known each other much longer than that, but also, the time has passed quickly.
If you are over 40 and don’t think that that online dating “works,” take a look at the piece below, the “Vows" section of the Sunday New York Times, March 23. Diane Cole and Philip Barnett found each other on JDate in 2002. Now 55 and 61 respectively, they had each been married and widowed. If you can still access the Times article, take a look at the little video that accompanies the write-up. It’s sweet, but you’ll get to see that these are two ordinary people with an extraordinary story.
You’ll also get a perspective on the experience of a 50ish widower on a dating site: These guys are pretty popular. Just like pretty women under 35, single men, particularly those who are widowed or divorced, are desirable commodities. Older men who have been married tend to like being so, and will go about getting themselves married again in pretty short order. As Philip says in the video, there are many more widows than widowers, so even though ideally, men and women should have some time between a divorce or death and a remarriage, these folks are good risks, since they are experienced at being coupled and want to do it again.
Vows
Diane Cole and Philip Barnett
By SANDEE BRAWARSKY
WHEN an armed band of American Muslim militants invaded several buildings in Washington on March 9, 1977, Diane Cole, then 24, became one of more than 100 hostages. The gunmen threatened to decapitate captives before she and the others were released 39 hours later.
As Ms. Cole sat in fear, pondering her fate, Philip Barnett was in Spring Valley, N.Y., and unable to sleep; his wife’s uncle was also one of the hostages. He recently recalled how he had wondered about the others being held, and how he had prayed for all of them. Dr. Barnett, now 61, would eventually come to know Ms. Cole, 55, but only after they both found themselves widowed and alone after long marriages.
Even before those frightening hours in Washington, Ms. Cole, who became an author and a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report, had been tempered by heartbreak. Her first husband, Peter Baida, nearly died of cancer while they were dating as students at Harvard. As Mr. Baida fought for his life, her mother died of cancer. From that crucible came her 1992 memoir, “After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges.”
That book ended on a note of optimism. Yet for a living memoirist, there are always new chapters. When Mr. Baida died in 1999, he left her with a 10-year-old son, Edward, and a message: grief should not trump joy.
“All the things she has endured could have crushed someone with less fortitude and spirit,” her cousin Judy Rousuck said. It was two years before she was ready to “move away from the cold terrain of grief,” Ms. Cole said. “I wanted warming up. I wanted romance.”
She turned to the Web, but men she encountered were filled with bitterness about past relationships. “I needed someone who spoke in tones less bitter and more sweet,” she said.
When she saw Dr. Barnett’s online profile in April 2002, she sent him an e-mail message. In his response, he offered understanding, noting that his own son and daughter were grown when his wife, Sarah, died, whereas Ms. Cole was left to fend for a young child. He also explained he was busily fielding e-mail from other women. “I never had such attention,” he wrote. “I married the only girl I ever dated, and the only one who really spoke to me.”
Nevertheless, they began an e-mail exchange that uncovered that both had longstanding interests in baseball, classical music and Jewish philosophy. But when she offered her phone number, he replied, “I feel more comfortable writing rather than speaking.”
In that same exchange he again mentioned the long list of women, but then dangled encouragement. “Few of these women are as interesting as you are,” he wrote.
In May they agreed to meet for dinner on the Upper East Side. For her, it was “comfort at first sight,” she said. Before parting she gave him a copy of her memoir, which Dr. Barnett, a professor and science reference librarian at City College in Manhattan, stayed up into that night reading.
They started seeing each other regularly, sometimes with Edward. Ms. Cole was touched by Dr. Barnett’s “sweetness, honesty, modesty and sense of humor, not to mention his intellectual curiosity,” she recalled. Comfort and healing grew to love, leading the three of them to take trips to Iceland and Norway.
“Diane has a big heart; we’re so compatible,” Dr. Barnett said. “She teaches me Shakespeare. I teach her science. I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again, and I am.”
Last summer they decided to marry. Explaining the timing, Ms. Cole said: “As a mother, my priority was to see my son settled into college life. And then we decided it was time for us to move into the next phase of our lives, too.”
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld led the couple’s ceremony at Bayard’s in Manhattan’s financial district, a party space in a 19th-century mansion that is filled with nautical accents. Ms. Cole, in an off-white cream satin Escada gown with gold sequin straps, stood with Dr. Barnett under the wedding canopy, bringing together past and present for their future.
The parents of her late husband sat up front as Ms. Cole, who wears their son’s wedding band on her right hand, held out a forefinger, on which Dr. Barnett placed the band once worn by her late mother. (The Baidas refer to Dr. Barnett as “their new son-in-law.”) The bride then gave Dr. Barnett a wedding band, one from his first marriage.
“Although many people already thought of us as an old married couple, we wanted to affirm in public our love for each other and this unexpected happiness in our lives,” the bride said before the March 9 ceremony, which happened to fall 31 years after the siege in Washington. “Now I can reframe the anniversary from one of terror to one of joy.”
This is an absolutely WONDERFUL story about and online hookup that worked, despite all indications to the contrary. Note that this was the author’s first date, it got off to an abysmal start, yet somehow, it worked. It’s a good testimony for hanging in beyond first impressions.
My cyber valentine Click this link to see a picture of Ann Schmidt-Fogarty and her now-husband
The computer and chemistry created an online love match
By Ann Schmidt-Fogarty/Reporter Correspondent
It was my first date in 10 years and he was 30 minutes late. “Not good,” I muttered to myself as I tried to look dignified, worldly and at home in the middle of a bustling Indian restaurant while feeling as conspicuous as a neon sign screaming, “Blind date reject!”
Sympathetic glances from my waiter told me he saw all the bright, flashing lights.
While waiting, I cursed myself for going on an Internet date with a man I had never seen. He e-mailed me and said he was 67. He added that he was intrigued that I was 17 years younger. And my tardy date didn’t give me a clue as to what he looked like, describing himself as “average.’
However, I also noted that he had lived and worked all over the world, and that intrigued me. His James Bond-like voice over the phone piqued my interest as well.
But, of course, now reality was setting in and every older, pot-bellied and badly balding man who bumbled into the restaurant increased my intense regret.
What was I doing? Didn’t I have a happy life without a man? What if the guy walks with a shuffle, taped-together glasses and needs a bib during dinner? Don’t serial killers disguise themselves as “average”?
Five more minutes and I’m outta here.
I had flashbacks to exactly why I decided to try this kind of dating in the first place. I was a busy public relations executive in Sacramento who never had time to do much more than TV and take-out after work. And I was reasonably happy with that. But, during a weekend stay with my younger sister, I heard a bit of hard truth. She had strong, uncharitable words about my lifestyle.
“You’re getting weird,” she told me gravely.
“I think you need to make your personal life ‘bigger.’ So I want you to do me a favor,” she continued. “Try to go out on a few dates and have a little fun. And, if you try the Internet thing, I will too.”
Seeing it more as a sisterly project than a real effort to find companionship, I got online and gave it a whirl.
According to the most recent online dating statistics, consumers have spent well over $300 million annually on paid personals and Internet dating sites. And countless commercials by services such as eHarmony and Match.com make it more and more socially acceptable to give it a try.
And I fit the Internet profile. Older Americans are among the fastest-growing segment of the online dating scene. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, millions from 50- to 65-plus are seeking permanent valentines through personals sites.
A long questionnaire asked me everything from my feelings about the outdoors (I like cities) to the level of my devotion to housekeeping (or my lack thereof). Food, attitudes about gender and even thoughts about world events were part of the survey, as well as attitudes about money, the arts and my temperament. About 45 minutes after I completed the survey, the information was tabulated and the “matches” popped up. Thus, I became a potential Internet dater.
And my “match” finally arrived after being caught in traffic. He didn’t look a thing like an older James Bond. Not at first, anyway.
In walked an advertisement for ironing boards and crafty barbers. Wrinkled, tussled and, yet, charmingly apologetic, Wilson Fogarty sat across from me, cocked his head, smiled, took my hands in his and uttered words that I repeat back to him to this day.
“You bite your nails,” he said dreamily. Looking at his over-laundered red polo shirt and unfashionable ice blue shorts, I answered, cleverly, “So?”
The date went downhill from there. Ordering every Indian delicacy known to man, Wilson happily tucked into a meal fit for three kings and all their concubines. With the table groaning from the weight of the food, and his habit of eating “Indian-style” (with his hands), I tried to ignore the incredulous glances from our neighbors and I silently practiced my early excuses to leave the restaurant: a sick bird, a phony bleeding ulcer or maybe a suicidal neighbor who needed checking on.
I am not really able to tell you precisely what transpired in the weeks, months and years following that date. I can only say it didn’t have much to do with computers and statistics. Or maybe it did. People often comment about our chemistry, and who am I to say that we don’t have the 29 points of compatibility that our online service advertises?
It’s that intangible thing that most of us want - a certain alchemy that, if we’re lucky, we get to experience once or twice in our lifetimes.
We proposed to each other and got married in 2006 at Fairfield City Hall. He catered our reception. Curiously, no Indian food was involved.
And, as corny as it sounds, in certain lighting, I’ve been noticing that Wilson bears a remarkable resemblance to James Bond.
• Ann Schmidt-Fogarty is a public relations consultant in Vacaville. Ann’s sister, Mary, also found love on the Internet at almost exactly the same time.
A couple of months ago, Drew and I started to get the New York Times delivered to our doorstep on Sunday morning, not an easy feat in Tallahassee in a brand new neighborhood that even Mapquest has trouble finding. It felt like such a luxury—not only our paltry Tallahassee Democrat for slow Sunday mornings, but also the New York Times, and we didn’t even have to go to Starbucks to get it. I make a perfectly acceptable skinny latte right in my own kitchen.
I particularly enjoy the NYT Magazine, and that’s what I started with this morning, leafing through it, though not reading (except for The Ethicist, who sometimes I agree with and sometimes I don’t). I’d go back to read later...but, the last page “Lives” got me: How could it not? The title was “Cybercourting.” That’s my bidness, as they say in the South. Here is Laurie Kasparian’s description of her online dating experience and the payoff for hanging in there:
Cybercourting
NYT 2/10.2008
By LAURIE KASPARIAN
“O.K.,” I told my best friend, “there’s this guy online I think I have to go out with.” It wasn’t said with the enthusiasm of one who finds love at first sight over the Internet. It was with a sigh, more than a modicum of dread and the appropriate amount of resignation that I admitted this to her, my happily married friend who found it all too easy to urge me to “get out there” and date.
I was 55, 15 years divorced, and this Internet campaign took all the pluck I could possibly muster. But all the other avenues had dried up — blind dates, volunteer groups, classes, professional contacts (bars were never an option). The site I used would send me matches, and all I had to do was read about them and “start communication” or “close” them out. Mostly I closed — square-dancers, Fess Parker fans, TV-fishing-show hosts and fathers of three preteens. But once in a great while someone came along who had no zapworthy traits.
I was a year into the search when this particular guy came along: Steve. It wasn’t that he sounded like the love of my life; it was that I could find no valid reason to reject him. My friend kept me very honest about this. She was in favor of kissing every single frog, and I dutifully ran my matches past her for a second screening. Steve, she enthusiastically agreed, had potential, and I knew what I had to do — “start communication.”
Our initial online interchanges went well. Steve asked what I thought the three most important qualities of a lasting marriage were, and I waxed eloquent on two of them, then gave up trying to impress him and just blurted out the third, “a killer sex life.” He told me his sons were both voted “best hair” in high school. “I am so proud,” he quipped. “They have worked so hard.” Questions and answers flew across the ether. But our schedules prevented us from meeting, so instead we moved up to the phone. Nightly calls lengthened to three hours and more as we hungered for and found common experiences and intimacy and trust. This was heady. But we still hadn’t met. We had the online photos, and we quizzed each other on our looks, but I wasn’t sure I would be attracted to him in person.
On the day we finally had our first date, I was having a major case of the vapors. My anxiety would settle for a moment, and then the thought of our meeting would set it off again. He seemed just as nervous. We each had mentioned that we had sensitive stomachs, so when he said, “You know we won’t go out to eat,” it didn’t sound as if he was cheap or weird.
Our rendezvous was at a bookstore in Newport Beach. I was to find my favorite book, and he was to find me. Was this cheesy or romantic? More troublesome was what book to pick. I did not want to be pretentious, superficial or predictable. I finally went with my true choice, “The Sound and the Fury.” I love its tale of the disintegration of a family in the South, and I especially love one line in the appendix, in which Faulkner gives all manner of family history. When it comes to the black family servants, he merely says of them all, “They endured.” It always touched me.
I nervously stood, book in hand, awaiting Steve’s arrival. I finally sat down in the aisle, leaned against the books, read lazily. I would see his sneakers approaching first, I thought. Finally they did. I looked up, saw what I felt was an old friend, jumped up and gave him a little hug. “Are you nervous?” he asked. “Not anymore,” I replied. “Me, either,” he said. “Let’s see what you picked.” I showed him the book. He took it in his hand. “Good choice,” he said. “Isn’t this the book that ends with something like ‘they endured’?”
We took the ferry across Newport Harbor, walked along the strand, talking and stealing glances. He didn’t look much like the picture. He was clearly older, decidedly heavier. Different glasses. We finally did decide to eat, and shared pictures of our kids as we did. It was clear he loved his children heart and soul. I liked that. Still, he seemed rather shy and stiff. Our phone calls had become very intimate, yet he steered clear of any intimacy now. I could tell he liked me, even though he did not smile much. I felt uncertain.
On the way back across the ferry, we were silent for the first time that night. He hadn’t touched me at all. Sitting side by side, I impulsively leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, and stayed there. It was comfortable, and I felt him relax. “How many people do you have to call tonight to tell about our date?” he casually asked. I counted up in my head: “Nine.” “Great,” he said, “the Supreme Court.” As we parted, he turned to me and said, “Thanks for the lean.” I smiled and realized bargains are made in an instant. For my part, I could see I had to start rearranging the old furniture in my head to make room for this strangely familiar stranger. Three years later, we endure.
Laurie Kasparian is a high-school English teacher in Irvine, Calif.
These stories below are from the comments section attached to the article in the NYT that I wrote about in my previous posting. Really, I could have copies dozens and dozens of wonderful stories that folks posted about meeting their Sweeties online. What a testimony for the wonderful tool of the Internet and dating sites. I stopped scanning about posting #80, and there were 210 when I was writing this post. See below for the stories of people for whom looking for love online WORKS!
My husband and I met 4 and a half years ago using eHarmony and we can’t say enough good things about them! We both found the matchmaking approach to be preferable to the select-a-partner approach in that we had a lot in common at the outset and it wasn’t based purely on physical chemistry. We are highly compatible with enough differences to keep it interesting. We have recommended eHarmony to friends and family who are interested in finding partners and will continue to do so because we believe it works!
— Posted by Dawn M. Smith
Dear John,
I too was skeptical about “finding love” online. I heard so many horror stories from friends who tried online dating sites like match.com, yahoo personals, etc…. So when my friend Megan told me to try eHarmony, after many failed blind dates set up by my parents, friends, and colleagues, I was totally against it. How can an online site know who is the “right guy” for me, when the people who know me are not able to find that “right guy?” But what she said next hooked me, she said that not only did she find the love of her life on eHarmony, her two other friends are married to their eHarmony matches and are now trying to have children. What are the odds in that happening? Three sets of friends finding love on eHarmony. Well I must say, I am now the fourth friend who has found the love of my life on eHarmony. The personality test took me 2 hours to fill out and I was sent matches right away. And John, you are right, I did NOT get a lot of communication requests or replies to my communication requests until I posted my picture. I think men are more visual. To make a long story short, all the matches that I finally met up with were people I would date or hang out with, had I not been matched up with them on eHarmony. It was just that the level of chemistry or attraction was different. When I met my husband, it was after being on eHarmony for 8 months. I knew right away from his online answers, from his voice, from his physical appearance, and from our chemistry… that he was the one. Two months after we met we got engaged and 8 months later we were married. We are now happily married for about three years. I would highly recommend eHarmony for anyone who is seriously about finding a soulmate. –Nikki, California
— Posted by Nikki Kwan
I wrote this 6 years ago … “been there (in match.com) for 7 months, profile viewed over 6200 times. I lost the count of how many guys contacted me when I reached the 100 mark a few months ago; out of politeness I have responded to all, the majority with a “thanks for writing, but I am not the right one for you”. Have talked on the phone with 30 or more, have met 16 guys - all of them very nice, most of them rather good looking, but the elusive chemistry decided not to be present on those dates. Interestingly, I was told that I look better than my posted pictures by a large majority of them - those were nice guys. I went out more than once with 4 of those… just giving ourselves and romance the chance, as some connection was there, but romance, decided not to bloom in us. I have written to 9 guys, 3 of those politely rejected me, 4 just ignored me and did not even acknowledge my mail, and I eventually meet one of the other two, with no luck either. Why am I still there? because my single friends that are not on-line are not even meeting quality people… at least I have enjoyed the company of very nice individuals, plenty of nice conversations, I have even made some few new friends… and I am still convinced the one for me is out there, I just need to continue searching…”
The end of the story is that shortly thereafter I found what I was looking for, almost exactly to my specifications, and we have lived happily ever after. It takes work to find the needle in the proverbial haystack, and I get the feeling that online dating works much better for those with good written communication skills, and those with certain analytical capacity to separate the wheat from the chaff, by just reading a paragraph. Those who work in recruiting or as college admission officers surely have an advantage.
— Posted by IMF
I am in a wonderful commited relationship resulting from online dating. I am also a biology researcher who spent a lot of time analyzing the online dating scene for the year and a half I was involved in it. I tried a number of different dating sites, though never one where I couldn’t make the choice. Nonetheless, I did not even meet men that I wanted to date on most of the sites. Then, a few weeks after I signed up for fast cupid/salon.com personals, I met the man I fell in love with. For me, it was all about the balance of meeting a select group of people with similar ideals/interests and having a large enough pool of online dates. Most of the sites that are specific to liberals or Jews or what have you, have a very small number of users. Then the general sites have an incredibly huge number of users who have little in common. I feel lucky that I found something in between.
That said, online dating also gave me the opportunity to date people I would not have met or thought to date otherwise. This was eye-opening. For instance, my boyfriend is certainly someone I would have been friends with had I met him, but I don’t think I would have dated him. Because we were dating as soon as we met, I gave him a whole month before I made any serious judgement about his dateability. Now I’m very happy and I’m happy to recommend online dating to certain people in the right situations. It’s not for everyone, but it broadens the possibilities considerably.
— Posted by A. Yelton
I have tried so many dating services and have spent a small fortune. I met my wife Karen through EHarmony.com and I cannot say enouigh good words about them. On many sites I had read bios, looked at pictures and sent out requests for introductions, and usually got no responses. Now I know I am no Adonis but I felt what harm could there be in meeting a nice guy. Many of my initial EHarmony matches went the same way. But the Eharmonty process allowed us to get a sense of each other before we could decide about meeting. In particular the 3 short essay questions really clued me in to a connection. It told me that there was a solid base from which to work. Our bond developed and 18 months later we were married, and now after 8 months, it just keeps getting better. We are a match for each other that would never have been discovered save at EHarmony. I only applaud EHarmony for doing the hard work and allowing Karen and I to become aware of each other. It worked for me.
— Posted by Jeff Beck
My husband and I met 3 years ago on eHarmony. I, too, was skeptical…but I figured..what the heck…give it a try!! I had been divorced for years and I certainly wasn’t going to go to a bar to “meet someone.” We lived about 1 1/2 hours away from each other and we would have never met otherwise. And it is definately not just for the “younger crowd!” I’m 51 and my husband is 60! We were married this past June! We are both so happy that we found each other! Both of us enjoyed the process of meeting each other. The questions on eHarmony really make you think about what is really important. Meeting on eHarmony DOES NOT mean that we do not have any marital woes and all is Nirvana. I feel, though, that because we have such compatibility, it makes it a little easier to get through “sticky times”. I highly recommend it!!!
— Posted by Cathy Haskins
I met my husband on match.com in 2003, we married in 2005. For me the draw to internet dating was the ability to focus on how compatible our values were and be able to screen out all of the things it would have taken me longer to discover. I’m in my middle years and didn’t want to waste time with another decade of dating. I never tried any of the sites that used an algorithm and I read his profile the first time I used match.com. I think the picture of my husband with a dog was the hook and that he had 2 kids about the same age as mine (young adults). We told my cousin (who is in his 70’s) about match.com and he recently married the woman he met online, who is 68. His profile photo was of him on his horse. They are now roping and riding their way across California.
— Posted by Connie
While I haven’t used eharmony (nor would I be able to because I gay), I did post a personal on Craigslist. I received many replies but decided to only meet one of those replies. We met and instantly clicked.
We’ve been together now for over 10 months.
And you know what the best part was (in addition to meeting the love of my life)? The whole post was free !
-Erika c/s
— Posted by Erika Carlsen
I subscribed to eHarmony for three months. I was “perfectly matched” with 296 women in the central Ohio area by the service. I am in love with the first woman who responded to my questions, who had left eHarmony but continued to receive “matches” from the servie. She took a chance and re-subsribed to gain fuller information about me. I am so grateful that she made that choice and look forward to building a lasting relationship with her.
— Posted by Tony
My boyfriend of 2 years & I met on eHarmony, & contrary to what #28 found, an unexpectedly high percentage of my matches were Indian and worked in some kind of science field. I could not figure this out until it occured to me that eHarmony throws a lot of data together & comes up with a result, which is the whole nature of scientific discovery. And yes, the love of my life did turn out to be both Indian and a scientist. We’ve recommended eHarmony to many friends.
— Posted by Christina Gertig
My experience suggests that the unscreened Match.com approach can work, at least for some people. In 1998, inspired by a colleague who had met her husband through Match.com, I tried it and within six months met the man whom I would marry in 2000. (Neither of us posted photos, by the way.) Then, a couple of years later, inspired in turn by my example, another colleague of mine met her future husband in the same way. All three marriages are still flourishing today–and for the last few years my stepmother has been dating a man she met through Match.com. . . .
In our case, Match.com facilitated a meeting between my husband and me that might very well have–but didn’t–occur through other means. One of my husband’s cousins knew my brother in college; two other of his cousins attended the same college that I did, at about the same time; and my husband and I are both PhDs who went on to work outside academe. Thus, the online introductions service functioned almost as a natural extension of existing social networks, and perhaps that is a key to many other successful outcomes as well.
It’s certainly true that our marriage is an example supporting the hypothesis that similar educational backgrounds, values, tastes, etc., help promote compatibility. One can imagine, though, that a screening mechanism might have ruled out us out on the basis of some relatively trivial differences. Perhaps those seeking a mate might want to try both the screened and unscreened approaches–after all, the whole point is to increase your opportunities!
— Posted by Nora
I met my now-husband through Match.com. We have been married about 4 years now. He was my 4th Match date. I almost did not accept it because Date #3 was a freak. Dates #1 and #2 were perfectly nice, just no sparks.
DH and I told everyone who asked how we met that “We go to the same gym”, which was true, but not how we met.
I finally got the nerve to confess the on-line truth to my family. My sister-in-law said she would “absolutely try” on-line dating if she were still single (much to my brother’s surprise). My 75 year old widower father confessed that he thought about trying it but figured he was “way too old to find anyone”. So much for the stigma of on-line dating.
— Posted by Elizabeth
My husband and I met via Match.com but I believe our success story is more of a coincidence (or fate, depending on your beliefs) than a result of their algorithms. As some other posts have noted, the Match site produces so many obvious fakes or desperate profile hits that I was ready to take my profile down after one week. I was 20 years old and was receiving messages from men who were either married or old enough to be my father. I’m dubious about online matchmaking in general but believe that with patience and a pre-established “perfect mate wish list” these services can work. Fortunately before I gave up, my husband found my profile, and his initial email was short and intelligent enough to get my attention. We talked over the phone for about three weeks, and seven months after we met in person we were engaged. We cohabited for a little over two years before tying the knot. I can’t imagine a more perfect companion.
— Posted by Sarah
I used several websites in the past and found my current partner on chemistry.com a year ago and we are incredibly well-suited to each other. I believe it was a matter of casting the net wide enough (through online dating) to be selective in meeting possible matches until I found that ideal combination of “the right match” and chemistry.
As I know, from my own experience, what it’s like to go through the ups and downs of online dating, I am forming support groups so that online daters can provide support and feedback to each other. Some groups will meet in-person, in Montclair, NJ. Other groups will meet virtually, by phone.
More information is available at http://www.onlinedatingcoaching.com
— Posted by Jonathan Sibley
Here’s the companion article from the NYT that I referred to in my blog posting of 1/30/2007. In the next posting, I’ll print a few of the great love stories of real people who wrote the author.
January 28, 2008
Wanted: Single or Married Adult with Online Matchmaking Story
By John Tierney
I’m ready to hear your online matchmaking success stories — and, of course, the horror stories, too.
I got interested in online matchmaking, the topic of my latest Findings column, while doing a column last year about the other kind of online dating in which you pick out your partners. Researchers who’d analyzed the traffic on the online sites told me they’d love to know more about the eHarmony approach because it might avoid the manifest problems of the online dating they’d studied.
When people look for their own partner, they can be absurdly picky as well as unrealistic about their own appeal. One result is the “lightning-rod effect,” in which the most attractive candidates get swamped with offers. A beautiful woman who posts a picture might hear from a thousand guys. She’s frustrated because she’s swamped with too much information; the guys are frustrated because most of them never get a reply. An online matchmaker like eHarmony, Chemistry.com or Perfectmatch.com can sort through huge numbers of people and pick out more realistic matches — in principle.
But where’s the evidence that their matching algorithms can really help you find love? Two eHarmony researchers, Steve Carter and Chadwick Snow, did a study concluding that married couples who were matched by eHarmony “indicated a higher degree of happiness, optimism and commitment to the success of their relationship” than did married couples in a control group.
That study was presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Society in 2004, and researchers at eHarmony tell me they plan to publish a more comprehensive version with more data. But other scientists, naturally, are skeptical of any report until it goes through the peer-review process, particularly when, like this one, it’s a cross-sectional study that takes a snapshot comparison of two groups at one point in time. Researchers at the new eHarmony Labs have started another, more rigorous, longitudinal study that will track eHarmony-matched couples and a control group over time, but it will be some time before there are results.
In a subsequent post I’ll discuss a little more of the science of compatibility and present some thoughts about eHarmony and other companies from researchers in this field. Researchers who’ve looked into these topics are welcome to post comments or e-mail me at (). And I invite everyone, scientists or laypeople, single or married, to report their experiences with online matchmaking. I realize, as ever, that the plural of anecdote is not data, but given the paucity of independent evaluations of these online matchmakers, anecdotes are at least a start.
Go to Mark Brooks’ blog and watch the video of his proposal to his girlfriend Irena. Mark is the editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com and is THE MAN when it comes to contacts in the online dating world. Mark interview me last year on his blog. You can read the interview here.
Congratulations, Mark and Irena!
Doncha love stories about couples who met online? I do, and I’ve got a good collection of them if you want to see more.
http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_222152910.html
MUST READ: Weekend feature: Online dating
By Mari Schuh
Special to The Free Press
Beth Speece of Mankato says when it comes to online dating, some people make assumptions.
“I think there’s this misconception that you’ve got to be a loser. Hey, I was just busy,” she said.
On a lark last year, Beth joined Match.com, one of the Web’s most popular dating sites. It was just another piece of her full life, a big part of which she spends teaching at Minnesota State University. She didn’t think anything serious would come out of it.
“I’m a very cautious person. I thought there’s no way you could meet the love of your life online,” she said.
Well, fate believed otherwise when Beth met Grant Speece for a cup of coffee after connecting on Match.com. The 40-somethings chatted for three hours about taboo first-date topics, such as religion and politics. They found they shared many common values.
Grant had another date with a woman that evening, which turned out to be a disaster. He thought of Beth the entire time. Shortly after, he called Beth back, and they decided to date exclusively.
They were engaged just two weeks later.
“People were really shocked,” Beth said. “Generally, we’re not impulsive.”
The Speeces are one of an estimated 120,000 couples who get married every year as a result of online dating, according to Online Dating Magazine.
Not everyone is quite so lucky, of course. Subscribers can spend countless hours sifting through profile after profile of “I love long walks on the beach” and then suffer through terrible first dates that seem to drag on forever.
Users should be wary of the pictures posed with profiles, too. Misleading photos akin to Abercrombie & Fitch ads muddy the waters. Vague and potentially inaccurate body-type descriptions (What does “curvy” really mean anyway?) test people’s belief in the process.
People even have to watch out for “professional online daters” who are addicted to the online-dating game. They rarely form a real relationship and bail at the first sign of trouble.
But despite all the pitfalls, those “You had me at hello” moments really do happen. Just ask Blair and Andrea Dehning of Mankato. The couple met on Yahoo! Personals in 2000 when the service was free.
It didn’t happen immediately — Blair had to surf around a while to find Andrea.
“I found one woman who wanted me to bungee jump with her,” he said. “I said icksnay to that one.”
|
|
