It’s a love story

My friend Jessica and I discovered that we both met our men online and she wanted to know if I’d blogged about it. She wanted to read my story. I did blog about it once or twice – but it was on my old blog. So here ya go… our story.

In December 2006, an ex of mine messaged me on Facebook and asked me to critique his online dating profile on okcupid.com. I was a little taken aback, thinking “Oh. I see how it is.” How exactly did I think it was? I have no idea.

I agreed to look and when I kept getting an error message trying to load his profile, he said he thought maybe I had to be a member in order to see it (It later turned out he was wrong about that, but I ain’t mad about it). So I signed up, checked out his profile, and gave him feedback. A few days later, in a state of boredom, I opened the page out and started looking around the site (ok, if we’re being honest here, I went back to look at his profile, wondering if maybe I should try to rekindle). I discovered a bunch of “journals,” which was like blog posts with a really active commenting community. I was hooked. So many amazing, insightful, intelligent, and hilarious people there. I found that this was nothing like your typical dating site and that people there were actually friends.

I saw a hilarious comment on someone’s journal and commented on the thread about how funny I thought it was. I clicked on his profile to message him. I had no idea what I was going to say, but I felt like I needed to. Before I could type a thing, I got pinged with a friend request – from him! I later found out that he didn’t actually mean to request me – it was an accident when he was just trying to look at my profile. I love a happy accident.

That was over six years ago. Dustin and I were living 500 miles apart and I would have never set out to enter into a relationship like that. Not to mention, I was the mother to an 11-month-old and he was the father to a 4-month-old. Neither of us was looking for love. Didn’t matter, because we found it – fast and hard. We started talking in mid-December and I realized I was in love with him on my December 30 birthday. While out partying it up, I could only think of him. I just wanted him there. And I stupidly, drunkenly, told him I loved him.

In February, I flew to Florida to meet him for the first time. There was certainly no turning back from the moment we embraced in the airport. It has been a wild ride.

We got married three years ago today, in a sweet lil’ courthouse ceremony. Marriage has not been easy – far from it – but it’s totally worth it.